I have often argued that with the consolidation of the movie and videogame industries into fewer blockbuster properties a large number of 3D artists will be moving (voluntarily or not) into commercial modelling for 3D printing. This appears to be true even for top artists who actually still work on those fewer blockbuster properties — and Paul Liaw’s store on Shapeways shows it.
I got a taste of Liaw’s work at London’s latest 3D Printshow, where he presented the World Turtle coloured sculpture 3D printed with Stratasys’ multicolor multi-density Object500 Connex 3 and the new capabilities of Photoshop CC, but I was not aware of his amazing talent as a 3D artist until he told me he worked on jurassic park 4. In fact most of his digital sculptures would need to be severely polygon reduced to be 3D printed.
For example his 3D model of a chameleon made me consider a current limit of 3D printing that I had never thought of: it has 60 million polygons and a top level EOS sintering machine can only go as high as 1-2 million polygons (which, by the way, is very high). It has been entirely digitally sculpted by hand (which sounds like a paradox but that is exactly how he works, as neither parametric software nor a 3D scanner could produce something this complex). An initial experiment in 3D printing something this complex resulted in the well known White Rhino 3D piece sculpture.
So when someone this talented decides to create a 3D printed jewellery line, expectation is likely to be quite high and, I have to admit, without disappointed. He started making jewellery because when he wanted to propose to his girlfriend he could not find anything he liked. He thus began to channel his skills into 3D printing, getting the hang of modelling for real objects within a few months.
The jewellery collection now includes a total of five bracelet designs: Wheat, Gator, Ginko, Pisces and Dragonfly, available in different sizes and materials, as well as a Welsh Dragon charm design and Cuff Links inspired by Pink Floyd’s The Wall masterpiece. What all began with an engagement ring, drawn in Maya and Zbrush then 3D printed in Wax and cast in palladium (after a 3D printed prototype in pink plastic), is now shaping up to be a promising new career.
