Saturday, December 28, 2013

Cthulhu Fhtagn! ShinyOne Edition.

TheShinyOne brings us a very unusual Cthulhu sculpt. What makes this different from the dozens of Cthulhu figures I've posted before is that it was sculpted digitally and then given physical form by a 3D printer.



This is the future of propmaking, and I'm really excited by the possibilities it presents. After years of on and off practice I'm just starting to reach the mediocre level of sculpting ability. A big part of that slow progress is that I have no feeling in the index finger of my dominant hand*, making fine tool control a real struggle. That's not an issue when I'm using a mouse, since I can manipulate it with my wrist instead of a single finger.

*The result of an unfortunate accident with an X-Acto knife.   You know the oft repeated warning to always cut away from yourself?  Obey it.


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

On one hand, I could never give up the wonderful feeling of physically sculpting something, especially since most of my projects are only half-planned-out at the start and finished "on the fly"; on the other hand, a local library just got one of these printers and I must admit I'm dying to give it a go and see what it can do.

~Andy

Propnomicon said...

@ Anonymous

I think the biggest benefit would be how easy symmetry is in a digital sculpt. Using calipers has improved my ability immensely, but having measurement and mirroring done automatically would be a dream come true.