Monthly Recap: July 2026

A snapshot of July and a look into August.

Published: August 5, 2026

In the Monthly Recap: June 2026 post, these were my plans for July:

...stream several times per week with a variety of stream formats
...continuing to improve my setup little by little
...have more of a focus on participating in design contests to branch out my skills and to expand my 3D model portfolio

Read on to see how July panned out and what's happening in August!

Twitch schedule

I set a schedule for the near future of having Monday, Wednesday and Thursday streams.

✨Follow and tune in on Twitch:

twitch.tv/karenchaudesigns

Start the week & sculpt

Monday mornings, we've been starting the week and sculpting ducks in Nomad Sculpt.

We started sculpting a few ducks during these Monday morning streams: a duck holding a coffee mug, a duck holding an apple, and a duck dressed as a captain.

Wingin' it Wednesday

Wednesdays, we just wing it with our "Wingin' it Wednesday" streams -- anything planned or unplanned happens here.

We had @TechJeeper on the stream as a guest to walk me through how to use Gemini, Jules and GitHub to create my own overlays to use in OBS for my Twitch streams. We built out my chatducks repo for having a chat pond on the bottom of my stream -- when people in chat say something, ducks in colors of the usernames show up with chat bubbles with what they say!

Tech Thursday

Thursdays, we have "Tech Thursday" streams -- anything technical goes!

Stream Deck: Using Streamer.bot and Stream Deck for streamlining and automating things to help the stream run smoothly and in fun ways. I've been only using one button (for my brb scene) since I came back to streaming -- I have many more buttons programmed to be more useful now!

Streamer.bot: @PhaiTing has been helping me learn how to use Streamer.bot and walking me through how to set up custom actions to manage various things for my stream. Thanks to the tools he set up, I'm able to easily take notes in Twitch chat with a simple !note command and have the note show up in the #stream-chat channel of my Discord.

Check out the Stream Notes Discord integration and PhaiTing's GitHub projects here: https://github.com/phai-ting/streamerbot

Vibe coding: I've been creating my own interactive Twitch overlays! The Chat Pond overlay is functional, but there are still many things that I want to improve and add, including creating an svg of my classic baby duck to be used as a default duck, and adding more ways for chat to interact with the Chat Pond (e.g. power-ups and channel point redeems).

TechJeeper also walked us through using the Antigravity IDE, though I think I prefer using Jules at the moment (and it's not as weird to refer to "Jules" as one of my new BFFs :P)

3D printing / slicing: I'd like to start creating more Bambu Studio tutorials (and maybe even Snorca). I'm hoping to have people submit questions on specific things they'd like me to cover in Bambu Studio, so that I'm addressing topics that are immediately helpful. I walked through how I add a hole to my multi-color baby duck in an unusual (but effective) way during my Tech Thursday stream. This time, I ended up having to re-record for sharing the tutorial on YT, but going forward, I hope to have my setup in a way where I can just clip it to share on YT without much editing needed (yet still provide the same educational value).

New Bambu Studio tutorial

Stop Struggling with Bambu Studio Negative Parts

Tired of your negative parts floating or sinking below the build plate? Here is my foolproof workaround for perfectly aligning holes in Bambu Studio.

In this video, I show you how I use Bambu Studio to add a customizable hole into a 3D model. This technique avoids the problems some people may come across, such as floating or sunken negative parts and general issues with alignment. I also share alternative options for certain interactions along the way, so you might find more new tips and tricks as a bonus!

Please share this video with someone who might find it helpful!

Watch on YouTube

If you have any constructive feedback about this video and of its format (besides for me being in the way of a menu item -- sorry!), I'm open to learning how I can make these educational videos better and more useful!If you have any other Bambu Studio questions I might be able to answer, leave a comment or add a post to the Community section of my YouTube channel -- you might be the first! I'll try to answer what I can, and maybe answer it in my next video!

Miscellaneous

I've been going through making clips of my Twitch stream and sharing them out on YouTube, Instagram and TikTok. (Sometimes even on Facebook, Threads and other places.)
I filled up all the animated emote slots for my Twitch channel, so we now have a fun dancing Glizzy, dancing goose, "hi duck" sliding in, RGB birthday cake duck, and more!
Check out the new #nom-nom channel in the Discord for people to share tasty looking foods they make or eat 😋
I also had impromptu streams outside of my planned ones. On a Friday stream, I sculpted a birthday cake duck (and ended up making it into emotes!)

Check out Makers on Stream and follow me there for notifications so you don't miss any streams!
https://makersonstream.app/creators/karenchaudesigns -- thanks to @TechJeeper for creating this for the community!

Targets for August

Twitch streaming

My goal is to host a community game stream where we play a guessing game where Nomad Sculpt (or other 3D modeling) is used for giving clues.
- I've been wanting to make this happen for weeks now, so I want to make this a priority this month to make this happen!
- I started building out an overlay that can help me distribute the secret word via a Twitch whisper and check the chat to see who guesses correctly.

New ducks

I designed a few ducks in July and didn't prioritize getting them published, so let's plan to get these ducks published (names pending):
- Duck holding a coffee mug
- Duck holding an apple
- Birthday cake duck
- Captain duck

Thank You

Thank you for supporting my work — whether you're cheering on Twitch, made a purchase, left a comment, or just followed along. It really means a lot!

If you’d like updates as things release, you can:

Join my Discord server to receive notifications of announcements (and chat!)
Subscribe on YouTube for videos and shorts
Follow on MakerWorld, Printables, Thangs, and Cults3D for 3D model releases (and occasionally on Ko-fi)
Check back on the home page in the New & Featured section on the website