Plastic Alternatives: 3D Printing in an Age of Material Wealth

Today’s world of 3D printing goes far beyond those initial plastic filaments that crudely constructed an object from a digital file. Depending on the project, it’s possible to create a table from metal, an action figure from sugar, or a bust portrait from molded clay. Lately, the latter pursuit has been on the minds of Yao van den Heerik and Marlieke Wijnakker, two designers in the Netherlands who have developed the means to craft clay with printers. Their speedy methods allow objects to be printed in as little as 15 minutes, which is faster and more accurate than any sculptor on Earth. Using natural and recyclable material, their pieces are not only built with our environment in mind, but the clay is so tough that it can last 5000 years without degrading.

Perhaps the better question to ask is: What do you need clay for, when plastic will do the job? Besides clay’s environmentally friendly properties, the material is better suited for bust portraiture. Under the typical model, a client visits a sculptor and sits still for hours as he shapes a solid block of clay over multiple sessions. With a specialty 3D printer, however, you can visit that same sculptor and talk for a while about how you want the bust to look. Then, he’ll take a quick series of photos, scan your upper body with a 3D scanner tool, and upload that data to his printing software.

From there, the sculptor prints a rough version of the bust in wet clay form, which gives them the freedom to use photos as a reference point for smaller details. Essentially, the 3D printer does all of the grunt work in a few minutes, letting sculptors work their magic where it really counts. By the end of the process, the sculptor has created a piece with tools and by hand, emerging with a product that feels painstakingly crafted (which it is). Behind the scenes, however, there’s a 3D printer at work to help streamline the production.

Currently, these new devices are tailored for semi-professionals and hobbyist sculptors, but as the technology continues to improve, it will most likely be adopted on a professional level. In time, the printers will also add more features, such as multiple colors and different styles of clay. The potential for creativity has barely been tapped. Besides bust portraits, clay could be used for a range of other applications, including durable pottery, natural children’s toys, vintage skateboard wheels, and kiln-fired jewelry. That doesn’t even take into account how artists could use the material to design abstract shapes and decorative pieces. Clay has been in use since ancient times, but now our civilization has come full circle and found ways to shape clay using modern machines.

Photo: Gizmag.com and Formlabs.com