Wow! It’s been a long time since I last posted to this blog. I wanted to give a brief explanation of the changes I made to the Nativity Ornament and the reasons why. First, I’ll just mention that the changes are subtle, so you may not even notice them. The biggest change is that the donkey and cow are now in a lying down position instead of a standing position. I’ve also shifted the position of each animal by just a little bit.

Now to explain why I made these changes. The main reason I did this was to decrease the amount of time it takes to clean up the ornaments after printing. The printing process involves a nozzle extruding filament in many layers beginning from the bottom and building up until the print is complete. Because of this, a bit of filament drips down under the standing animals since there’s nothing to support it at that point. I tried adding support, but I couldn’t remove that support without damaging the animals or knocking them off entirely! I was left with cleaning up what I could after the print. It worked out fine, but took a lot of time and the result was still a little messy.

That brings me to the second reason: I wanted to increase the quality of the print. By putting the donkey and the cow in a lying down position, there’s no issue with a mess printing underneath them which immediately improves the quality. I also feel like the overall aesthetic has improved as well. The whole scene feels more natural and even brings more focus to the family at the center of the scene by lowering the animals a bit. The sheep was left alone for the most part with only a slight shift in position. Because of its small size, it didn’t have the same issues as the other two.

I hope you like the changes and I hope these Nativity Ornaments continue to serve as a reminder of the central role of our Savior, Jesus Christ!