Introducing Carbon 13!

It's been more than two years since I released Dummy 13 here on Printables. That was the culmination of what I called the “13 Series,” a set of models allowing anyone to customize their own humanoid action figure.

Since then, I've explored in a few different directions. I updated Dummy 13 from its beta version to v1.0. I released some fun one-off designs like the Articulated Spider and All-Terrain Assault Benchy. More recently, I've put out some paid models like the Dragon Action Figure and M13 THOR Mech. I even created my own benchmark print, Grabby the Claw, to help people get better prints of my designs.

But Dummy 13 has always been my most popular model -- consistently ranking among Printables' most downloaded models month after month. So I decided that it's time to create a worthy successor.

The result of that effort is called…

Carbon 13

Why Carbon? Carbon is the fundamental building block of life on Earth, and life is what I tried to capture in this design. Carbon 13 has the same dynamic and expressive poseability you expect from the 13 Series, and enhances it with sleek, organic forms.

You'll see that there are two body types available -- the petite and feminine Type F, and the tall and masculine Type M. These two versions use the same core system, but were separately modeled from scratch. I've made two separate download pages for ease of organization.

Unlike Dummy 13, which has a full inner skeleton, Carbon 13 uses a hybrid system where the main body parts are solid and only need small joint parts to connect them together. This reduces the total number of parts, and lets me fit more detail into a smaller package.

The best part of the 13 Series is seeing all the cool, creative, and crazy remixes our community comes up with. So, Carbon 13 will ultimately be a free Creative Commons model, enabling anyone to create the next awesome remix. It also uses the same size ball joints and hands as the rest of the 13 Series, making it cross-compatible with lots of existing accessories and upgrades made for its predecessors.

I also have to shout out Juniper for coming up with the name Carbon 13! Hi Juniper!

Friday the 13th

Are you superstitious about the number 13? It's a lucky number for me. It took me 13 iterations to get my first printable action figure ready for release, and my brand has been Lucky 13 ever since.

So when Friday the 13th rolls around, I like to do something special! For example, Dummy 13 was released on Friday the 13th – both the beta version and the 1.0 release.

This year, we have back to back Friday the 13ths in February and March. That gives me the perfect opportunity to test something I've been considering for a while: early access.

Starting on Friday, February 13th – which is when this article comes out – all members of my Printables Club will get early access to Carbon 13. (You can also buy it outright if you don't like subscriptions). It's available at any Club tier, and you can join today and get access.

Then, on Friday, March 13th, Carbon 13 will become freely available to all users!

While it's in early access, Carbon 13 will be for personal use only (the standard digital file license). When it releases for free, it will switch to a Creative Commons license - specifically CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.

This will allow sharing and remixing, as long as you give attribution and upload under the same license. If you want to sell prints, you'll have to grab a Seller License through my Printables Club.

If you grab the files during the early access period, feel free to start working on remixes - just please don't upload them before March 13th!

This isn't even my final form

Just like I did with Dummy 13, I'm releasing Carbon 13 as a beta version to start.

What does this mean? Well, it means I recognize that there could be some improvements to the design in the future - but I need your help to get there.

You should have confidence that this is a fully realized design, which meets my own high standards as something I want to put out into the world. At the same time, you should feel free to tell me (nicely) what could be improved. At some point in the future, I will put together all the feedback and release an updated version.