As my friend at Growthobjects once explained to me, personalized award manufacturing is a thriving business for new and and consolidated 3D printing and 3D design studios. For Sketchfab user JuanG3D, the reward comes from making the most famous awards available to you, for free. You may not have earned them through your artistic or athletic talent but, if you can 3D print them, then they are effectively yours.
Founded in Paris, France, before expanding into the New World with a New York City office, Sketchfab is an online 3D model database that lets you publish and embed interactive models, which can be visualized in gorgeous 3D full color details. The website supports up to 28 formats and these can easily be shared and embedded on any Tumblr, WordPress, Behance, Facebook, Kickstarter, LinkedIn, deviantART and other online pages, like this:
To inaugurate our 3D Model(s) of the Week section, we figured we would just share prizes for everyone. On JuanG3D’s page you will find Oscars, Grammys, MTV Awards, Golden Globes, Emmys, Golden Palms and even the infamous Golden Raspberry Award. If your thing is sports you can 3D print yourself a Balon D’Or (the Golden Ball regularly awarded to Cristiano Ronaldo or Lionel Messi) or even and FIFA Club World Cup, which is what I decided to give myself.
3D printing it is relatively easy. You download the .blend OSGT file (if you don’t have Blender you can download it for free here), export it as an .STL and load it up in your desktop 3D printer. I used Cura for that. If you only have a single extruder like me you will have to do some more post-prodcution. It depends on the model but it’s not so bad. To 3D print it I used a DeltaWASP, an Italian delta 3D printer which is truly a remarkable machine (I will be fully reviewing soon).
However you might not even have to 3D print it. Just playing around with the awards on Sketchfab is pretty rewarding in and of itself. I am not exactly sure how JuanG3D did it, but the items actually shine in the 3D visualization window. If you really want a challenge you should try to 3D print it in castable wax and make a sand cast to reproduce it in metal. Wouldn’t it be cool to have a miniature collection of every famous award with your name on it. For me, I think I will stick to a blue PLA World Cup for now, since my team is not going to win one again for a very long time (please excuse the Apple product placement… I needed a white background).
