3D artist Cosmo Wenman is hardly an unknown name for our readers, nor to anyone passionate about 3D printed art. At 3D Printing Industry, Wenman’s art has been covered by Juho, and experimented by Derek with his MakerBot by gluing smaller 3D printed parts together to create something larger. Wenman’s art is truly astonishing and worth taking a closer look.
Cosmo Wenman recently posted a thing on thingiverse, a replica of Jacob Epstein’s Albert Einstein sculpture from 1933, sculpted in Britain where Mr. Einstein was a refugee from Nazi Germany. Epstein described Einstein’s “wild hair floating in the wind” and wrote that “his glance contained a mixture of the humane, the humorous and the profound.”
Mr. Wenman scanned the Einstein portrait using Autodesk 123D Catch last year, when he was visiting the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, where the portrait is on display for visitors, who are even encouraged to touch the work of art. He then 3D printed the piece in PLA on a MakerBot Replicator, and finally used Alternate Reality Patinas to finish it in bronze.
Wenman was seemingly happy with how it turned out: “This is my first attempt at the outright duplication of a sculpture scanned in situ in a museum, and I am pleased with the result. My scan captured the rough volume of the features’ broader strokes, though not all their individual contours. More time photographing and better lighting would certainly yield a more faithful model.”
“This subject may be a bit of a cheat, though; Epstein’s loose style is particularly forgiving, and the nearly uniform, dark bronze patina is pretty straightforward to approximate. And, of course, Einstein’s iconic face is so memorable and easily recognizable. His spark leaps through any medium,” he continued.
The Einstein sculpture was part of Cosmo Wenman’s “3D Printed Portraiture: Past, Present, and Future”, which was on display at the MakerBot exhibit at the Consumer Electronics Show last January.
Cosmo Wenman’s Instructions
For those who would like to try this at home, Mr. Wenman was kind enough to upload the instructions on Thingiverse for everyone to experiment. You can download all files here.
I’ve uploaded several .stl files and .zip archives. All of them are scaled to life-size, 1:1 with the original.
– EinsteinSolid.stl = The complete head as a single, water-tight manifold. This should be printable, as-is, with external supports.
– EinsteinSolidWithBase.stl = The complete head as a single, water-tight manifold, with an integrated base. I haven’t printed this, so I don’t know how well balanced it is.
– EinsteinShell.stl = The complete head as a single, water-tight manifold, with the interior hollow. I printed a version of this configuration, in parts (see below).
– Einstein_r1_Shell_Version.zip = The shell version split into 6 pieces, each scaled to life-size and able to fit within the build-volume of a Replicator1. All the pieces are oriented such that none require external supports (or rafts). Includes a loose mounting bracket. I printed a version of this group in PLA; this is the configuration shown in my photos. I printed mine at .18mm layer height, 4 walls thick, hollow, at 215 temp.
– Einstein_r1_Solid_Version.zip = The solid version split into 6 pieces, each scaled to life-size and able to fit within the build-volume of a Replicator1. All the pieces are oriented such that none require external supports (or rafts).
– EinsteinShell2Parts.zip = The shell version split into two pieces. Both are oriented so that they shouldn’t need external supports. Includes the mounting bracket. If you rescale these, make sure to scale all the parts by the exact same factor. (Don’t use “fill build space”)
– EinsteinSolid2Parts.zip = The shell version split into two pieces. Both are oriented so that they shouldn’t need external supports. Includes a version of the lower half with the integrated base. If you rescale these, make sure to scale all the parts by the exact same factor. (Don’t use “fill build space”)
For once the saying goes: Kids, do try this at home!
Source and image courtesy: Thingiverse
