bonehead
A Fixture
This is a job I did recently for a client (don't ask - that is all the info you will get - client proprietary information, etc.). It is, of course, a portrait head of a real person.
I know folks who work in the movie industry. Yes, they do have 3D scanners that can scan the head of a real person. That scan can then be reproduced as a sculpture using a 3D printer. What neither of those processes can do is produce a usable sculpt out of the chute. It will be close, but even a scan taken from a real person needs to be tweaked by an artist with a good eye, because the scans end up being somewhat lifeless and lackluster. Everyone I have talked to about this says the same thing.
But the above head could never be done that way anyway. Why? Because today the subject is presently decades older than he appears in this sculpt! No way a scan can make the guy look younger! And what about sculpting people who are already dead? You cannot scan those either.
In the end, 3D printing is just another tool. It still takes a person with an good artist's sense to produce a sculpt with good artistic merit. A tool is only as good as the person using it. I think the reason some people question whether such technology will make sculptors (or other artists) obsolete is more down to a cultural obsession with technology - and the belief that technology is in some way "superior" to the efforts of a skilled and determined person. This is baloney.
Even with all of the technology out there, it will still take a person with artistic skill to create a finished product with good artistic merit. When you show me a machine that can extemporaneously produce a work of art with the relative merit of , say - a Mona Lisa, then my skills will become totally obsolete.
I know folks who work in the movie industry. Yes, they do have 3D scanners that can scan the head of a real person. That scan can then be reproduced as a sculpture using a 3D printer. What neither of those processes can do is produce a usable sculpt out of the chute. It will be close, but even a scan taken from a real person needs to be tweaked by an artist with a good eye, because the scans end up being somewhat lifeless and lackluster. Everyone I have talked to about this says the same thing.
But the above head could never be done that way anyway. Why? Because today the subject is presently decades older than he appears in this sculpt! No way a scan can make the guy look younger! And what about sculpting people who are already dead? You cannot scan those either.
In the end, 3D printing is just another tool. It still takes a person with an good artist's sense to produce a sculpt with good artistic merit. A tool is only as good as the person using it. I think the reason some people question whether such technology will make sculptors (or other artists) obsolete is more down to a cultural obsession with technology - and the belief that technology is in some way "superior" to the efforts of a skilled and determined person. This is baloney.
Even with all of the technology out there, it will still take a person with artistic skill to create a finished product with good artistic merit. When you show me a machine that can extemporaneously produce a work of art with the relative merit of , say - a Mona Lisa, then my skills will become totally obsolete.
