Post #690049 by Gene S Morgan on Tue, Aug 13, 2013 6:28 PM

In my early post about sculpting I discussed the how Ipad sculpts using the 123D Creature app could be 3D printed using a company called Sculpteo. I had never used that 3D printing service before, so I wanted to come up with a sculpt that would be cheap to produce. It was just a test after all. This is the sculpt I finally sent them. I really would have preferred another tiki, but this one had the proper amount of detail for testing the quality of the print and was the cheapest. It was my choice.

Well this was an adventure, some good and some bad. I didn't know I was ordering from France until I saw the return address on the package. I mean, I have nothing against France, but it took a month and a half to get my tiki print. Shapeways, who I have used before took half that time. Another problem was that there were voids in the pendant in several places. They had sent me an e-mail saying there were some weak spots in my design but they could print it anyway. Well the weak spots were more like holes. You can see by the photo I did a fix using some air dry clay and wood putty. The thing that I really liked about the print was the material they used. It was almost stone like with a nice fine pebble grain surface. When I made the mold this surface transferred quite well.

I got a couple of real good tiki cast. The rough surface was perfect for the final dry brush effect. My wife really liked the larger size of these pendants. The one in the middle is and older design of mine that my wife wears all the time. Just put it in for a size comparison. I will probably use these folks again if I can figure out how to come up with sculpts that are cheap enough without cutting into the back so much that they get all holy …...