The great thing about 3D printing is that you can recreate smaller parts of pop culture, which is what has happened today with this “foot communicator” from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Maker Drew Lovell created this project using a unique piece of reference material. In place of a screenshot or video, an original animation cel from the 80’s cartoon was used.

You can see the framed cel together with the print in the gallery below.

Modelling here took around four hours in AutoCAD, with printing taking another six hours. Lovell did mention to us that printing on your machine should be faster, though.

As the communicator was made in two parts, these were glued together and modelling putty used to hide the seam between them.

The silver part was painted first using a Krylon metallic, before being masked off for further colour. Testors purple metal flake was used as the main colour with the smaller details filled in using Posca paint pens.

Krang was added into the screen section after being printed onto paper, and the finished prop was sealed in a clear gloss coat.

If you’d like to make your own version of this project, the files to do so are available for free on Thingiverse.

At 165 X 115 X 26 millimetres you won’t need to budget much plastic, but maybe pick some purple filament if you want to avoid painting most of it.

Those disappointed that this isn’t an electronic device with a working screen will be happy to know that Lovell is working on a version that houses a Raspberry Pi. As soon as that is completed we’ll have a full story looking at how it was made.