We have made it! Our 3D printed Starry Night has been shortlisted for the 2017 TCT awards.

Every year the TCT Magazine honours individuals who innovate in the realm of 3D printing. This September marks their annual award ceremony and just recently the top 5 contenders were listed. We are happy to announce that Custom Prototypes has qualified for the shortlist by entering our 3D printed Van Gogh painting, the Starry Night.

The idea for our entry came from a personal attachment to unique art created from artists that harnessed various techniques to achieve depth in their paintings. Van Gogh was famous for this and used a priming technique to create texture before any colour was applied.

After looking into the process we began to wonder if it was possible to replicate one of his iconic pieces using SLA 3D printing. Our team at Custom Prototypes began to analyze his painting style which then lead us to the challenge of trying to create a file that could be 3D printed. With the use of different software we were able to lay out a topographical view which was then adjusted for depth to create the 3D file. It was then off to our SLA 3D printers where we had it printed with a strong and flexible white plastic resin.

For the frame we wanted to stick with 3D printing and decided to replicate a 19th century ​​European impressionist. We achieved this by 3D scanning a frame and then modifying the scan until we got the desired look. We then spoke with a professional art restorer who had a grasp on Van Gogh’s painting techniques. It was then time to implement our new found knowledge into the art piece by emulating the colours and brush strokes to match the original.

Our 3D printed Starry Night has gained a lot of media attention since its public launch last year. It was awarded first prize at the AMUG technical competition and has been in the spotlight of various art and 3D printing blogs across the web. We hope to continue to gain popularity for this unique piece and show the world just how many creative applications there are for 3D printing.