Excuse that I'm in a cynical mood today. I asked this question in the Custom "How to thread" w/o response
Do we know that 3D printing is a viable technology for 1:6 scale headsculpts ?
That is has ANYBODY done that before successfully ?
Yes, it is viable for 1/6 headsculpts and is done often.
The only caveat is that you can't print fine details. The texture that Chu has put on Indy's fedora won't print, as well as the stubble. You can't print skin texture. You will still need to go in and add the fine details by hand.
It's just like what Gentle Giant did with their busts. They still had sculptors go back in and refine the details once the 3D scan had been printed in physical form.
I'm not sure if it's fair to compare yet, as the sculpt has not been "produced" yet, but when you compare the printed version of Kirk to the 3D render you can see that the finely stranded hair goes away, eyebrow detail goes away, the lines in the corners of the eyes go away, you lose a lot of the crisp details. Mostly because you're going from a high-resolution virtual object, with 1,920 lines of resolution (which is probably pretty inaccurate because 3D sculpts are created with polygons, but I'm referring to lines of resolution in the image) to a physical object with made up of maybe 1,000 ultra thin wafers of resin. But, it really all depends on the quality of the printer, I'm not sure what model WGP is using. And maybe they have someone that goes back in by hand to add in the fine details. Don't know yet. But if it turns out well, I'm sure I'll pick up a Traditional Indy.
Bottom line is, in a battle between a talented hand sculptor and a talented 3D sculptor, the hand sculptor will make a better head 10 times out of 10. You can make a photo-real landscape in Photoshop, but when you want to hang that picture on your wall, you need an amazing printer to recreate that art. But, if your an amazing painter, you just hang it up.
EDIT: Anyways, after that long-windedness, I see ShortRound's awesome photos. That HT map is a nice touch. I've always wondered, what is mfisher's whip made of, is it leather or is it a flexible rubber?? Can't really tell.
Congrats.
And the WGP sculpts are nice, still on the fence, but this smirking sculpt captures the essence of Indy perfectly imo. So for all intents and purposes, MY indy is finished, do with yours what you will.
