Why Maquettes Are Worthwhile (Learned the Hard Way)

I recently had a private event in my 3D-printing studio (AKA my home dining room LOL), so I had cued up a file to 3D print a sculpture on my 8-foot-tall Cerberus 3D Gigante 3D printer.

I designed the sculpture on my desktop computer and took it to the computer beside the big printer to slice it.

I started the print about 8 in the morning on Thursday; the group was coming at 1 p.m. Everything went flawlessly, with great questions from the visitors.

The sculpture finished about 6 a.m. on Friday morning. It wasn’t until I removed the 3D-printed sculpture from the print tray that I noticed the top and bottom of the inside of the oval on the sculpture didn’t finish.

These ovals are tricky, but then that – and their visual impact – is part of what draws me.

I have a thought about how to change the design next time, and I ended up using this one for a little modification testing, which was a huge fail, but now I know. (I’ll post the video on social media. It’s short. LOL)

The aesthetic and personal impact of my sculptures is most important – I want to move the viewer from where they were to somewhere different – but the technical challenge to get my sculptures to where they fulfill that goal is also worth the chase.

Would a maquette (small model) have helped? Maybe.

I probably should have 3D printed a maquette, but that doesn’t always guarantee the larger 3D print will be the same as the smaller one.

Still, next time ….