How 3D Printing is Changing the Game for Artists and Designers

By: Kristine Hansen

Contrary to what some may think, the practice of 3D printing—making objects out of digital files—is not about churning out works in large numbers; transforming an art form into a veritable machine or factory. Instead, this technology enables artists to further perfect their craft.

What is 3D Printing? 

3D printers allow sculptors to create more intricate cavities, twists and turns with sculpture work, and—on a more micro level—create proof-of-concept for clients before final execution. Similar to how a craftsman furniture-maker might build a miniature model of their final piece, to ensure the joints are all as prescribed, so do today’s artists who employ 3D printers. In the realm of fashion, clothing designers can create a small sample of their apparel before executing the final product, and jewelry designers can create a higher-quality form with less manual labor. While the first 3D printer was created during the 1980s—by Chuck Hull, who later co-founded DTM, Inc., a company that 3D Systems acquired—artists have only recently started embracing this new technique.

Building Maquettes

Kevin Caron of Kevin Caron Studios in Phoenix, Arizona—a sculptor who frequently folds a trio of 3D printers, including the eight-foot-tall Cerberus 3D Gigante, into his artistic process, working with fabricated steel— is one example. “I use them as models, or maquettes, to show patrons,” he says. “It’s something to have on their desks to show off while a sculpture is being created.”

This petite model can also help work out the kinks before labor, money and time are spent creating the commission. “Will a sculpture stand up? How does it look compared to what I expected?” are two questions that Caron hopes a smaller model can help answer before he goes big.

Recent commissions that Caron has completed using 3D printing include the 5.5-foot-tall “Epic Swoon” for a PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) office in Columbus, Ohio. Crafted from PLA resin, it’s Caron’s largest 3D-printed sculpture to date, and was completed in 2015. Using 3D printing has also allowed Caron to expand his techniques as a sculptor, such as adding interior lighting to “Solar Flare,” which is operated remotely. And for his “Wabi-sabi” series of sculptures, he used technology from 3D printers to create what Caron calls “organic-looking sculptures.” On his YouTube channel, Caron further documents his process through a series of videos and has 75,000 subscribers to date.

Large-Scale Works

The ability to break down the formation of these large sculptures into manageable, smaller-sized components, and then fully assemble them on site intrigued sculptor Julian Voss-Andreae. The Portland, Oregon artist has operated a studio since 2004, building on his earlier career as a quantum physicist. He primarily works on protein sculptures. Like Caron, he’s able to quickly create miniature models for clients.

For a project commissioned by Georgia Tech—a six-foot-tall seated figure—the traditional method would have been for Voss-Andreae to make the model by hand and then weld it together. Instead, using 3D printing, he could work on one part at a time. This also allows the artist to customize as he or she goes; not having to be locked into a pre-made cast’s form. For one of his sculptures—“Samantha,” commissioned for a client in Wyoming and completed in 2016—that he created using traditional methods, he now sees how 3D printing would have been easier. Over a four-year period, he welded together hundreds of triangle-shaped steel pieces to create a human form. “It was insanely difficult to even transport that thing,” says Voss-Andreae. He can now create the same look “that’s really impossible to fabricate unless you have 3D printing,” he says.

In 2014, when 3D printers became more widely available, Voss-Andreae scooped up a few on eBay. “My design process is very informed by what is possible,” he says. For example, armed with this new equipment, he built a room full of 3D printers that led to a new project, based on what he could do in there. By taking hundreds of photographs snapped at different angles—of the same individual—he crafted “Barbie-doll-sized” figurines.

“You can build really crazy shapes by getting to places you couldn’t get to before,” he says, which only makes the human form that much more life-like. “Molding is like a clamshell—the bottom and the top—but with 3D printing, you can access the middle.”

Efficiency and Accuracy

Like Caron and Voss-Andreae, Southern California sculptor Cosmo Wenman is an advocate for 3D printing, scanning and design. He frequently consults with artists and foundries about how to incorporate digital techniques into their traditional workflows.

As an artist, Wenman works mostly with life-size sculptures in bronze, replicas of ancient artifacts and portrait sculpture. “In my work, 3D printing is just an intermediate step that is mixed with conventional workflows, and the final works typically show no traces of their digital origins,” he says. Take his robotically milled plaster replica of an ancient Roman marble for the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Hollyhock House in Los Angeles. “It may look like a traditional work, but my clients know they were made faster, more economically, and with more precision and versatility than would have been possible with conventional techniques,” says Wenman.

He’s also found success in creating more intricate figures. “For the National Zoo, I produced life-size bronze casts of primates’ hands—a gorilla, chimp, orangutan and gibbon. The hands needed to be digitally reposed while preserving fingerprint-level details in the final bronze casts,’ says Wenman. “This kind of detail would not have been practical without 3D scanning and printing.”

Museums and 3D Printing

Wenman would like to see museums and private collectors take full advantage of 3D printing, too, by scanning important works and “becoming engines of new cultural creation,” says Wenman. “They should digitize their three-dimensional collections and project them outward into the public realm to be adapted, multiplied and remixed in new, unpredictable ways that will shape the arts for millennia. They should do this because the best place to celebrate great art is in a vibrant, lively and anarchic popular culture. I’d love to see it become standard practice for private collectors to produce and publish 3D scans of their collections as part of responsible art collecting and patronage.”

3D printing can also reinterpret a famous work of art. Rob and Nick Carter—in London, England—created sculptures through 3D printing that were inspired by centuries-old paintings: “Sunflowers after Vincent Van Gogh” (2013), “Black Tulip after Judith Leyster” (2012) and “Bronze Oak Grove after Jacob de Gheyn II (2017). The “Transforming” series was inspired by their startling discovery that museum visitors, on average, look at a painting for only five seconds.

“We wanted to bring Old Master works to life…to marvel at Dutch Golden Age realism and share in that culture’s delight of nature. It became our ambition to create a body of work that rewarded viewers for the extra time spent looking, through the introduction of new and interesting elements,” says Carter. “We want to slow the viewer down, draw them in, and make them re-examine the work and ‘re-look’ at a painting.” A dozen slow-moving looped films are also in the series.

Still, the argument that 3D printing can cut down on manual labor didn’t necessarily apply with the “Transforming” series. The Carters worked on the “Transforming” series between 2008 and 2018 after The National Gallery, London gave permission to make “Sunflowers after Vincent Van Gogh.” It wasn’t until 2012, however, that 3D technology achieved its current level of efficiency. “Even in 2012 each flower head took between 40 to 60 hours to print,” says Carter.

The Future of 3D-Printed Art

Could 3D printing lend itself to a new art form where works created via a 3D printer are suddenly labeled as such? One thing is for certain: using this technology frees up artists to focus on the imagination and conceptualization portion of their careers, not the busy work. “I can focus on the art rather than reproduction,” says Joshua Harker, a sculptor in Ann Arbor, Michigan, considered a pioneer in 3D-printed art and sculpture. His works often depict skulls—including “Crania Anatomica Filigre,” the most-funded sculpture project in Kickstarter history—and he was the first person to create a 3D printed-art business. He describes his work as “bridging the traditional materials and techniques of the past with technology of the present” and “a landmark event.”

“It’s particularly useful in bronze casting, eliminating the steps of mold making and wax castings to create the master patterns,” he says. “I’d been practicing Surrealist automatism through the 1980s and 1990s, but the associated two-dimensional work I was creating was too complex to create three-dimensionally. My pursuit of a process to develop these visions sculpturally culminated after nearly 20 years in a perfect storm of software development, materials engineering and 3D printed technology advancements.”

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About Kristine Hansen 

Covering art/design, food/drink and travel, Kristine Hansen has contributed to Wine Enthusiast, Travel and Leisure‘s website and Conde Nast Traveler‘s website as well as ArchitecturalDigest.com. She is also the author of Wisconsin Cheese Cookbook: Creamy, Cheesy, Sweet, and Savory Recipes from the State’s Best Creameries (Globe Pequot Press).