3D Printing

Minockio’s 3D Printed Figurines Show Mass Customization is Only Limited by Society

3D printed scans of yourself, such as those offered by Shapify, are definitely impressive. The ability to capture your likeness in great detail with a 3D print, made from a precision 3D scanner, is amazing, but as realistic as it is, most people would agree that human beings just don’t look that cute. Instead, we might opt for a 3D printable cartoon version of ourselves, possibly made by a Thai company like Minockio.

Minockio is similar to the MixeeMe product, from the US company MixeeLabs, we’ve previously covered. You customize an online, cartoon model to your specifications and place your order, receiving a sandstone-like figurine in the mail, 3D printed on a ProJet 3D printer. Customization options include, changing the eye, nose, and face shape, a variety of outfits, and a few different poses. In the end, you can purchase a 4” figurine for 3700 Baht or $115, though, after June 30, the price goes up to 4500 Baht or $138.38.

Minockio offers some nice changes from MixeeMe, in that the figures don’t look like South Park characters, yet aren’t distinctly realistic looking either. I’d have to point out that Minockio does have a major drawback to MixeeLabs’ products. Though there is some level of customization, it isn’t as complete as their US competitor. To compare the two cartoon model making sites, I tried to create an avatar of Eurovision winner and drag queen, Conchita Wurst, since my wife and I are such fans of drag queens and she’d be in the news so much recently.

eurovision-austria-conchita-wurst-dataIn crafting my Minockio Wurst, I noticed that Conchita’s nose could protrude physically from her head, compared to the flat, graphical noses possible at Mixee. I was also able to alter her head to more accurately match Conchita’s, while Mixee Wurst’s head was a perfect sphere. But that was about the extent of the advantages to Minockio.

The options for things like hair, skin, and eye colour were very constraining on the Minockio site. I hope that, in the near future, they will allow customers to input specific hexadecimal web colours as is possible with MixeeLabs. My somewhat random choice of Conchita Wurst illustrated the constraints of Minockio most saliently, as Minockio, mimicking larger social practices, divides customizability into two distinct gender categories. If I wanted to give her a beard, I had to select my figure to be a boy, but if I wanted to give him long hair, it would barely reach his shoulders. And forget putting a dress on a boy! The closest thing was a graduation robe. Hardly the look for a gender fluid diva.

Gender No No Minockio 3D printed figurines

Mixee, on the other hand, even allows users to upload their own decals. If you’re good enough at photoshop, you could put Conchita’s face on your MixeeMe. The best I could do was make a texture map of her golden dress and wrap it around her dress. So, you’re trading off the overall aesthetic of the figurine for customizability. You can decide which Conchita is the best and which is the Wurst.

3D Printed Conchita Wurst side by side

Minockio is still a work in progress, as indicated by the 0.3.2 in the bottom corner of the screen, so I definitely won’t fault them if they’re able to do away with the gender construct and open up the colour options a bit. Check back with them regularly, as they grow their product and bring the dream of mass-customization within reach. Let’s just hope that dated social mores don’t stand in the way.

Source: Minockio