Whenever I speak about how – IMHO – game designers will begin to move more and more toward 3D modelling for physical 3D printable objects I often mention Electronic Arts and Activision. That’s because I think many of the game characters these two companies publish would be a good fit for 3D printable products and also because I think that they are so large most videogame designers currently work or have worked for one or other of them.
Christopher Brändström
, a top notch game (and movie and commercial and toys) designer may partially prove my point. After having worked for over ten years on EA games such the Battlefield and the Need for Speed series, he is now a freelancer and the work has increased, with collaborations on Hollywood blockbusters such as World War Z and Lincoln, along with more work as a toy designer. He has now purchased a Zortrax M200 3D printer (the Polish company that got a huge order from Dell) and in an interview he spoke with the company about what he uses it for.
“I’m planning on working together with a really talented painter named Tim Gore,” Brändström says, “he’s been working for Spectral Motion for years and on films like Jurassic Park, Blade, Hellboy, Pacific Rim to name a few. One of those extremely talented people you rarely meet. The plan is to [3D] print models we both decide we want to work on, so I make and ship the models to him so he can do what he does best and amazingly well.”
For Brändström being able to hold a physical object rather than a 3D visualization on a 2D screen is unbeatable. “No matter what industry your clients are in – they will always prefer something they can hold in their own hands to look at,” he says explaining that 3D printing is particularly useful for his new toy-related project.
“I’m currently doing models for McFarlane Toys which are the leaders in the toy and collectible industry and whom I have been a fan of for a decade and a half,” he says. “For that job it really helps having a 3D printer to show your models before they’re shipped to the factory. There are a lot of technical bits that needs to be fixed before printing can begin as well, so it’s a great tool to shorten the development process and easily find faults in the model that might not work when it’s time for manufacturing”.
Brändström chose the Zortrax M200 because of another artist, Marco Di Lucca, whom he worked with at ILM (Industrial Light and Magic, one of the biggest special effects companies in Hollywood, part of LucasFilm and now Disney). “He’s doing the exact same thing I intended to do with the printer which is to print more organic sculptures with complex geometry and that needs to be able to print very detailed models. So the quality of the printer was what I was looking for as well as the great price.”
The price of a desktop 3D printer is incredibly convenient especially for those who use it a lot. That seems to be the case here, too. “So far the printer has been running non-stop ever since I got it and love that when I wake up in the morning I’m able to see either a finished model or just how much it’s been printing overnight. I’ve actually found myself staring at the printing for 10-15 minutes, just watching it physically create what I until recently only could show on my computer screen. It still amazes me.”
The point has been made.
