Cthulhu Air Plant Holder

This Air Plant Holder was inspired by H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu. I loved the idea of the air plant becoming an extension of Cthulhu's tentacles. My then-7-year-old son helped with the design. His influence is evident in the belly button and…the butt crack. :)

The entire planter is about 12.7 centimeters (5 inches) high, 15.24 centimeters (6 inches) wide, and 7.62 centimeters (3 inches) deep. The hole for the plant is about 3.175 by 1.6 centimeters (1 ¼ by 5/8 inches). The head is removeable for easier insertion and watering of the air plant.

Printing Tips

If you want to use my process as starting point, here is how I attack printing the planter: 

Body

With the Body, I have found I really only need supports underneath the wing. You may want to use the Paint-on supports feature in PrusaSlicer to block supports on other areas like under the fingers, between the legs, the belly button, and the top of the wings. I have also found it to be helpful to add enforce supports near the two wing tips that touch the printer bed.

Head

With the head, I have always just printed it upright (You may want to experiment with printing it in a different orientation). I found it to be helpful to increase the number of perimeters to give those tentacles some extra strength to survive support removal. If you would like to do that too, but don't want to increase the perimeters for the entire piece, you can take advantage of the Add modifier feature in PrusaSlicer. In my case, I added a box. Once it was resized and placed over the tentacles, I increased the Perimeters. I have had good success with 5 perimeters.

I haven't needed supports for the hex hole or the inside cavity that holds the plant, so I painted support blockers in that area.

Meanwhile I enforced supports on the tentacles to make sure there is a nice cradle to keep them still and stable until they attach to the rest of the head.

I hope whatever settings you choose to go with, you have great success with the print!