I was approached by the coach of a local junior football team in the runup to the 2026 World Cup finals. England was looking hopeful for the win, so to celebrate the coach wanted to gift each of the players with a personalised mini trophy.
There were 3D models available online, but many were inaccurate, or not optimised for 3D printing with overhanging areas requiring additional support material.
I selected a model that was close to the original trophy and also had commercial licencing and used it as a starting point. This model was bisected through the centre of the trophy, which was not ideal, so i imported the model into Blender and got to work.
As to be expected from an STL, the topology was poor and dense. There was overhanging geometry requiring support material in small delicate areas that would increase print time and reduce print quality.
The base geometry was simple, so the quickest option was to recreate it from scratch.
The repeating rectangular shapes and text were split from the base to simplify topology.
As there was no subdivision to be applied, topology for the text does not need to be perfect.
Chamfers were applied to all text and protruding shapes to remove the need for supports.
The trophy body was combined and hollowed and a screw thread was added to the base and trophy. This allows the trophy to be printed more efficiently and the hollow internal space allows for filling with a dense material to add weight.
Naturally, if you make a mini trophy, you also have to make a life sized one! The trophy was scaled to 360mm tall and the threads had to be re-proportioned to be appropriate at this size.
After printing, the trophies were filled with plaster of Paris for weight and a custom cork base was laser cut and etched.
