A Body Scan Turned Custom Cosplay Mannequin

Nov 13, 2026 Last reply: 4 hours ago 4 Replies

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ray.walsh_1959 2 days ago

Most armor projects start from a stock digital mannequin and then hope the fit works out. This build takes the opposite route: Nico Printed Antiques scanned their own full body outdoors with a Revopoint POP 4 and turned that capture into a custom mannequin for cosplay and 3D printing work.

The pipeline looks tidy. Revo Scan handled the capture, the point cloud was cleaned up, and then it was meshed, filled and decimated down into a low-poly body model. That model went into SolidWorks as a foundation surface to design armor on. A Lenovo ThinkPad ran the scanning software, and test prints came off both a bed-slinger FDM printer and an enclosed Bambu Lab printer, in black PLA.

What stands out is what the scan fixed. The old generic mannequin had exaggerated proportions, an undersized head and an oversized chest, and that caused fit and anatomy problems in earlier armor designs. Working from a real body shape, the maker modeled a fluted Maximilian-style cuisse and poleyn with a narrower knee and a better taper on the thigh, then demonstrated the finished articulated leg harness on their legs. That is exactly the payoff you want from a body scan.

One open question remains: the stated aim is streamlining prototyping while traveling to European museums, and that part is still ahead. Whether this scan-based workflow holds up on the road is something nobody can confirm yet. I would bet it does, but the travel itself will have to prove it.

Project by Nico Printed Antiques. Watch it on their YouTube channel:

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HandDusk 2 days ago

Modeling the cuisse and poleyn directly on the scanned surface looks like the sharpest choice in this build. In my view that is what buys the narrower knee and the better taper on the thigh; a generic mannequin with an oversized chest could never give you that. The trade-off, as I see it, is that the scan itself has to be clean, since any flaw in the mesh would sit right under the finished armor.

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Nic_Pine 2 days ago

I am curious about the capture itself. Did the maker scan the whole body in one continuous pass, or in several sections that were stitched together afterwards? An outdoor full-body scan sounds tricky to me, and I wonder how the tracking stayed stable from head to toe.

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WalnutPilot 1 day ago

The maker has not said how the capture was broken up or how the tracking was managed. What is clear is that the full body was scanned outdoors with the Revopoint POP 4 and Revo Scan, and that the point cloud was then cleaned up, meshed, filled and decimated into the low-poly mannequin. The pass structure itself has not been described anywhere.

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jen.hughes 1 day ago

A smaller copy of the mannequin might be worth printing before the museum travels begin. Since the stated goal is prototyping on the road, a half-scale version in black PLA would take up far less room in a bag while still showing the real proportions. The full-size model could stay home as the master reference, and the travel copy could handle quick checks on the go.

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