Flexible 3D Print Headband - Halloween Spider and Bloody Drips

Since I have a few flexible filaments, I thought it would be fun to print flexible headbands! And since it is Halloween time, why not do Halloween themed ones. This Instructable goes over two Halloween designs: Bloody Drips (modified from my 3D print bloody drip choker), and a Black Widow Spider on a Web. These designs were also inspired by the fact that I only have black, clear, and red flexible filament.

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Instructable 354

• 3D Printer - I have a Prusa MK3 - This print uses multiple colors but you change colors between layers so you don't need a multimedia extruder system
• Flexible TPU Filament - these aren't cheap so you can get them in smaller amounts if you don't plan on using them much and I recommend a filament dryer as they absorb water horribly and I have personally had success drying it after having it for a few years.
• Red
• Black
• Clear or you could do White, I just did clear here partially because that's just what I have but I also didn't want the web to stand out a lot.
• Elastic 1/4" - you could use a different width, but I designed this to go with 1/4"
• Scissors
• Hot Glue - or E6000, I'm getting more and more frustrated working with E6000 so starting to use hot glue more

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I used Tinkercad to design my headbands.

First I started with the blood drips and I actually used the bloody drip choker to make it.

I "cut" up certainly drips from the choker that I liked to reuse on the headband. To give it more depth, I tilted them so the bottom of the drip tipped up so the drips would look more layered.

I gave the design kind of a base to get a reference for where to put the drips. I left the ends, but removed the rectangle that was just used for reference. Each end is made up of a rectangle and triangle and a rectangle cutout for the elastic. I wanted to make sure I had enough plastic around it because I knew when you were wearing it, it would pull, so I don't want the ends too fragile. I also decided to do these ends .8mm (or 4 layers) thick.

Then I just tried to stagger the bloody drips between the ends for an organic look. Originally I did them in a straight line and it was just too organized. I also "started" the drips from the top center and had them drip down each side.

Once everything looked the way I liked it, I exported it as one shape and print it in red flexible filament.

For this headband I first designed the spider, then I designed the web based on how long I could print determined by the size of my printer bed, and then the red diamond on the back of the spider.

The spider body is made up of various spheres that have been cut to have a flat bottom edge and then triangles were used to shape the legs. I wanted to do .8mm for the web base so I had to make sure the parts of the spider were all thicker than that so they would show up on top of the web and so the spider would have depth without being too thick.

The legs are 2mm thick with the body 4.4mm and the red hourglass being 1.30mm thick but up 3.61mm.

The web was last and was just made up of rectangles. I tried to make web pattern work as well as I could with the setup. I'm not sure why I decided to cross the main strings of the web on each side, but I just know I didn't want it too ordinary and it seemed like a fun way to do it without making the web too big as it isn't the focus. Because of the shape, I kind of pretended there were two webs with the center of the webs being on each side which is how I based the directions of the smaller web bits.

Adjustment made after printing.

After printing this design and changing colors between layers, I discovered the translucent red just didn't show up on top of the black spider and I didn't want to make it super thick sticking up and I wanted to limit myself to color changes between layers for ease of printing. To solve this red issue, I ended up cutting through the body of the spider and web to leave a hole underneath the red hourglass. This allowed the red to show up really well! This took a LOT of fiddling as I wanted to make sure the hourglass was big enough on top so that it was supported well above the hole. No openings around it. So, I did a lot of exporting, slicing, and fixing in Tinkercad to get this right.

Just a look at the headband. I went with black elastic on this one because I wanted it to "blend in" with my darker hair.

Measure the headband against your head to decide how much elastic. I recommend having it not too tight, maybe only 1 inch smaller than your head measurement.

A look at the finished headband and the difference between having the hourglass hole in the body versus not having it.

I went with white elastic on this to match the web.

Again, measure the headband against your head to decide how much elastic. I recommend having it not too tight, maybe only 1 inch smaller than your head measurement.

(I am not sure how the one spider got printed with only 6 legs. I think one set just didn't get exported and I didn't notice at the time. Good thing it ended up only being a test anyway.)