This weeks designer spotlight we are highlighting Grant Miller! Grant is an animator and character design artist in the SF Bay Area and has been modeling for 3D printing now for about 10 years. Grant’s shop is full of fun products and a whole lot of imagination!
Tell us a little bit about yourself: Who are you? Where are you located?
I’m a concept designer, an illustrator, and a maker. I live and work in the East Bay of the San Francisco Bay Area and one of my favorite things to do is turn other artist’s work (mostly comic books) into finished 3D prints and make my client’s ideas and my own come to life. Whether it’s pushing geometry around or delicately airbrushing a 2mm eyeball on a figure, I love the challenge of a new build! Most prints need post work on them before painting and finishing to make them how I or the client originally imagined them. Post work on 3D prints is especially fun for me because after pushing pixels for hours and hours to create the (seemingly) impossible- you get to hold this magically created object in your hands and manipulate it into it’s final “fully rendered” state!
What’s the story behind your designs? What inspires you?
I love all things geek culture- comics, movies, toys, etc. Growing up I enjoyed taking apart and customizing my old action figures and vehicles. Making them different and how I wanted was always so much fun. I love all aspects of the creative process- discovering new and innovative ways to tackle design issues, balancing form & function, and experimenting with new materials.
Sometimes I get in these modes where I look at people and objects around me and I see their “wireframe”. What inspires me is the geometry of the world around us. All of the physical things in our lives have unique structure, form, and texture, and they can be modeled and printed exact or fantastical from literally nothing but our brains and some cool tech.
One of my most challenging designs was the Stelliform Owl, using a combination of stylized character design, negative space, and functional lighting, I was able to offer it as a reward in my successful Kickstarter campaign with the help of Shapeways!
What brought you to 3D printing with Shapeways?
I have been 3D modeling since 1998 and modeling specifically for 3D printing since 2006. I got my first print in 2007 and it took months to get as well as being VERY expensive. After that ordeal, I realized I needed another solution. I went about creating accounts at multiple 3D printing companies and uploaded the same proven printable model to all of them. I was amazed to find that ALL except Shapeways had issues with the upload, and when those were finally resolved, either the scale size was way off or the price was really high, or both. In addition to the hassle free uploads, Shapeways had the best price by a huge margin, and after getting print samples from all the different companies I saw that resolution and overall quality was comparable if not identical between all. Sticking with Shapeways was a no-brainer, and after hundreds of prints in all kinds and materials, I am a die hard Shapie!
How did you learn how to design in 3D?
It was 1997 and a friend of mine lent me some old issues of Lightwavin’ Magazine (later “KeyFrame”) and the ads in the back showed a few schools teaching 3D modeling & animation and one of them had a phone number with an area code VERY close to me called 3D Xchange. I called right away and went in that week for orientation. I’ll never forget that first one on one session- I was taught the Left Hand Rule and how to create primitive geometry. Seeing and being able to move and spin an actual 3D object in that Open GL display blew me away and I knew right away that this is where my future lay.
How do you promote your work?
I am terrible at marketing and promoting. The bulk of my clients have come from two places: my old Deviant Art page, and talking to artists and writers at comic conventions. I’ve done several projects for creators at Image, DC, SLG, and Action Lab Comics and those all came from face to face meetings at cons showing physical samples and portfolio work.
Who are your favorite designers or artists? Who in the Shapeways community has served as an inspiration to you?
Chris Sanders, Andrew Bawidamann, Doug Sneyd, Dean Yeagle, Geof Darrow, oh boy… too many favorite artists to name! Surfing Instructables.com serves up a LOT of inspiration as well.
Some very inspiring Shapies are Brian Richardson, ptrathos, and Genghis to name but a few.
If you weren’t limited by current technologies, what would you want to make using 3D printing?
If I was not limited, all I would want, is to make super smooth highly detailed full color strong and slightly flexible prints made out of 100% recycled material on a home printer. That’s all 🙂
Anything else you want to share?
I want to thank Shapeways for their excellent customer care and communication. 3D printing is a very frustrating business from modeling, to file formats, scaling, manifold integrity, wire & wall thickness, print medium vents, misprints, breakage, shipping issues… there’s SO much that can and does go wrong yet through it all, Shapeways’ awesome customer support always works with you and offers more than fair solutions and I really appreciate that!
WHAT WE LOVE ABOUT THIS SHOP:
- Really fun, original products
- Great photography
- Really great renders in place of photography
- Great range of products
- Good branding
Thank you, Grant! So amazing to see such creativity and imagination come to life. Thank you for being such a fan, the feeling is mutual! Follow Grant on Facebook and don’t forget to visit his shop. To be featured, email aimee @ shapeways.com.