Sitting in class, bored, doodling in the corner of a notebook with no plan beyond passing time is how a lot of throwaway sketches happen. Most stay throwaway. Sometimes, though, one curved line that looks a bit like a wave or a tail slowly becomes something that sticks in your head, and you keep drawing it until it isn’t just a line anymore, it’s a character with a face.
That’s how Whaley started. A whale character drawn during class kept showing up in sketches, gaining expressions and variations until it felt like a proper mascot. The creator turned it into stickers for friends and WeChat moments, and seeing Whaley on other people’s notebooks made the idea feel more real, a small proof that a doodle could be shared and enjoyed beyond the original page.
Designer: Ayanvitta Kalsi
Curiosity pushed the project into three dimensions. With help from a parent, online tutorials, and trial and error, the whale became a 3D model, then a series of 3D‑printed shells. Early prints had rough surfaces and cracks, but they were enough to sit on a desk as a reminder that the character could exist off paper, even if it just collected dust and made visitors smile.
The next step was turning Whaley into a working mouse by transplanting electronics from a cheap wireless mouse. The original shell came off, leaving a PCB with an optical sensor, scroll wheel, switches, and a 14500 Li‑ion cell. That assembly dropped into a new 3D‑printed base, so the hard part of tracking and clicking was already solved, and the focus could stay on the whale’s shape and feel.
Multiple printed shells followed, each one tweaking the fit around the scroll wheel, refining the back curve, and dialing in how the left and right buttons flexed. Layer lines and seams slowly gave way to a smoother, polished blue whale body with a small smile cut into each side, a tail at the back, and a white underside that still let the sensor and glides do their job.
The finished Whaley Mouse behaves like any other compact wireless mouse on a desk. Left and right clicks are integrated into the head, the scroll wheel sits where a blowhole might be, and the body fits under the hand like a small creature rather than a generic plastic shell. It’s playful without being unusable, showing that peripherals can have personalities without sacrificing basic ergonomics.
This project grew step by step, from boredom to doodle, from stickers to 3D prints, from donor mouse to finished product. It’s a neat example of how following a small idea a little further than usual can leave you with something you can actually use every day: a whale‑shaped mouse that quietly proves a sketch doesn’t have to stay in a notebook if you’re willing to keep asking what comes next.
The post 3D-Printed Whale-Shaped Mouse Began as a Bored Classroom Sketch first appeared on Yanko Design.