3D printing is really moving along. Shapeways has had ceramic in its materials inventory for quite a while now… I was messing around with random modeling in ZBrush recently when this character appeared. I finished it off and just had to get it printed. Ceramic seemed to be the material of choice. Available for $21.55 ($6.50 shipping via UPS in Canada or USA) in my store on Shapeways.
Flying Pig in Ceramic
Flying Pig in Ceramic
A young sailor in the 1700’s is homeward bound at the end of his first whaling experience. Haunted by the grotesque sights of mighty whales slaughtered and cut to pieces, he knows he will never return. He would rather grow potatoes on the family farm than sail through blood red waters again… At night, on the rocking ship, the young man works by lamp-light and carves into a piece of whale-bone using needles and his knife. The image burned into his memory is of the first whale spotted at sunrise by his crew and subsequently killed. It is this scene that he attempts to preserve on the small piece of bone. Once complete he will encase the edges in copper scraps that he found on the ship and, finally, will present it to his mother when he tells her he will never again return to the sea…
Faux Scrimshaw
Faux Scrimshaw back
Before Greenpeace comes a’knockin’ – no, this is not whale-bone, or tooth, or part of any animal. It is, in fact, tagua nut, an extremely hard nut used by woodcarvers for miniature pieces. I made this myself to try and recreate something a little different. I wanted to make something that looked like it was an antique and something with a story behind it. I cut and shaped the nut (no mean feat in itself) and then set to work using micro chisels to carve some of the design. It isn’t 100% carved, I want to make that plain, and I then took my Micron Pigma pens and inked into the carved lines and the rest of the image around them. With help from blades used in scratchboarding I then scratched into the design to create cross-hatching and, thus, more depth.
Once that was done I took some copper, heat and beat the hell out of it and formed it around the back of the piece, finally joining the pieces with copper wire (and a bit of glue). Finally, I polished it and then coated the surface in resin for that extra shine…
Signed and dated (2012) on the back, the piece is for sale directly from me. It measures 48mm in width and height and is 20mm deep (approx 1.75×1.75x.75 inches).
Cdn/US $125 includes shipping and Certificate of Authenticity. One of a kind and I won’t be making another…
This is something I’d designed quite a while ago but until Shapeways introduced a White Ceramic material there wasn’t another material I wanted to make it in. This image is a render and the actual sculpture would have a thick layer of ceramic glaze on it, but you get the idea here. It is 14.7cms wide and costs $95.
Adrift sculpture
I have a short turntable video of this also that helps show the form better.
(For some weird reason the video doesn’t show up for me using Google Chrome – and Google owns YouTube! – but it does in Internet Explorer. If you have that problem here is the direct link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cn0UNl_g22Y)
This is an Inukshuk “sculpture” that I created to test out Shapeways new ceramic material a few months ago. It was a test for Shapeways, too, and the material has been temporarily suspended while they determine if it will be brought back. So, for the time being, and maybe forever, this is the only model that exists…
Inukshuk Sculpture photo 4
Inukshuk Sculpture photo 3
Long before modern dice the Romans played with Long Dice. These were made out of ivory, typically, and had designs carved onto the faces to represent the numbers. This intrigued me and I looked around the Wicked Wide World and couldn’t find any for sale. So I made one. It measures 3x1cm and I have attempted to make it fairly weight distributed by carving out six semi-spheres on each face – some on the outside and the remainder on the inside; yes, I know this isn’t perfect but it’s better than having one side with one hole and the other side with six.
The added bonus to this design is that the dice doesn’t go bouncing all over the playing surface, making it much safer for children to play with, and yet it does bounce more than adequately to produce random faces.
$5.96 in White, Strong and Flexible material from Shapeways: The one below is Polished WSF material which has a slightly more, well, polished appearance!
Long Dice - photo 1
Long Dice - photo 4
I recently had a custom order for a stamp for creating impressions in hand-made soap and the other day received pictures of the stamp being used…
Xmas Tree stamp used
If you’d like to buy this soap please visit her store on Etsy.
Shapeways.com – the company that prints my designs – just recently introduced .925 silver as a new material they offer. They put together a gallery of items they have printed in silver and my Bucephalus Horse was one of them! It looks great, I think. Direct link to the model in my shop.
Bucephalus Horse in .925 Silver
I had a request recently to make a soap stamp for someone who makes and sells her own soaps. Sorry, I don’t have a photo since it shipped directly to her, but my model on Shapeways is here as well as a photo of some soap that has had the stamp used on it. If you’re interested here is a link to her store on Etsy.
Candy Cane Soap
Everyone has a stack of bills to pay and what better way to keep track of them all with a paperweight that has a raised dollar sign symbol plain to see? This is just one of a series of paperweights I have designed (see below), and I would recommend having this made in Sandstone at under $20.
Others in my series:
Question Mark: For that pile of papers you don’t know WTF to do with!
Dollar Sign: Well, we all have bills to pay, right?
ToDo: And, of course, we all have things to do. Great for procrastinators!
Checkmark: And sometimes we get those things done! … Or we approve things
Big “X” And sometimes we just can’t approve of things, no matter what!
OK: Yep, another pile of papers approved
IN: Documents in…
OUT: …and documents out; unless they get a big question mark paperweight put on top!
Paperweight - Dollar Sign
