3D-printed Lain Hairclip

Article orginally published on Reddit detailing my journey to obtain a physical hairclip worn by Lain of Serial Experiments Lain. See the original post here: https://reddit.com/r/Lain/comments/11pq6u0/3dprinted_lain_hairclip/

Last month...literally last month, like early February...I randomly looked up Lain's hairties and found out that they were not hairties but instead hairclips. Its "true" shape is depicted only in a single image of the Lain art book (as far as I can tell).

The only real life replications of this that I could find were:

1. Kathy Haemers's blog post on 3dhairdo.com, where she doesn't actually replicate it but instead purchases and reviews a plastic model from Shapeways by "HMalant",
2. This one reproduction where it is cast in some kind of metal and is unusable as a hairclip, so instead it is used as a necklace decoration,
3. Non-faithful reproductions

I'm not paying $22 plus tax to Shapeways for a piece of plastic! Screw that! I'm going to make it myself! I thought to myself. So I did.

https://github.com/Ghoulean/LainHairclip/

I went ahead and made the model and all, but I don't own any 3D printing equipment and I don't feel like dropping a thousand dollars on one project. Maybe I can pay someone to do it for me? It's only, like, 43.5 × 15 × 5 mm. But it requires a fair bit of precision since it's so small.

Via CraftCloud, I went and commissioned the hairclip to be printed in three different materials: PLA plastic (FDM), Nylon (SLS Nylon PA12), and standard resin (MSLA). It came out to $47.56 plus tax. Which is like $15.85 per clip so it's still better technically.

Anyways, here's how it came out:

PLA Plastic

The PLA plastic was first to arrive (~1 week), manufactured by Hudson Creative Group. Quick printing times is this material's forte, after all.

Even from a distance, I could see the printing lines. Can't tell if PLA plastic simply requires a larger nozzle or whatever, or if this is indicative of poor printing quality. At the time I didn't have a measure, so there's an eraser for scale.

Aaaand I broke it. Almost immediately, I squeezed it in my hand too hard. I didn't even get to wear it. Awful.

Nylon

After ~2 weeks from ordering, the Nylon arrived. Manufactured by JawsTec.

I was surprised that it couldn't close as well as I expected it to.

It looks and feels nice. Sturdier and better-printed too.

BAM!!! (2024-08-15 edit: good god my hair looks awful)

Unfortunately, it's not very usable. It can't actually open "all the way", that plus the spikes in the design make it really hard to put on the clip. It doesn't "clamp" so it's also not possible to wear it as low as Lain does; it needs to be worn high. There's really no mechanism for securing the clip other than friction, which means that after an hour or so it'll naturally just slip off no matter what.

Hard to put on, easy to take off. Not the best combination for a hair clip.

I still have one more material left to try out. I doubt the material will make a difference, but...

Resin

It's finally here after ~4 weeks. Manufactured by Vegas 3D Printing.

Uh, it's kinda stuck. Had to use a bit of force to unstick it. I have no idea if this is normal.

After unsticking it, I caught a whiff of it and it smells like wet paint. Not the nice kind either; very nasty. It's also sticky. I'm not putting that in my hair. Screw that, back into the bag it goes, and back into the bag it stays.

TL;DR

Lain's hairclip is sci-fi. I wish it wasn't. The end.