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Jeff Normandin @exitthenorm, Cosmo Wenman
9
makeprojects.com
REMEMBERING
RALPH
CONCEPTREALIZATIONS.COM
When Ralph Baer, creator of the earliest home
gaming consoles, passed away in 2014, his family
raised funds to produce a life-size sculpture
commemorating his role as “father of video
games” in his hometown of Manchester, NH.
3D artist Cosmo Wenman and his company
Concept Realizations stepped in to help design
and produce a bronze statue more quickly and
affordably than traditional routes would offer.
Wenman terms his sculpture workflow
“digital waxworks.” In it, he designs a piece in
software (he uses Blender), then virtually splits
the complete model into parts while adding
necessary sprues, joints, and flanges for the
actual casting and welding. The pieces are then
3D printed on Voxeljet printers using a wax-like
material that can be cast with metal.
“It lets the foundry entirely skip the mold
making and wax casting processes, which can
be extremely time consuming and expensive,
particularly on large and complex sculptures,”
Wenman says. “It’s possible to make a life-size
bronze from scratch in a matter of weeks.” He
says it also allows him to design consistent, or
even strategic, wall thicknesses, instead of the
traditionally uneven hollowness of a sculpture.
The foundries then handle the final 3D prints
just like conventional waxes with their normal
process. “The actual burnout, casting, and
chasing workflow would be largely recognizable
to a foundry worker hundreds, or maybe
thousand of years ago,” he says.
The foundry team installed the sculpture in a
local riverside park, renamed in Baer’s honor,
to fanfare. Wenman, who’s been active in 3D
printing and scanning since 2009, is meanwhile
looking next to the classics.
“I’m using French freedom of information law
to compel the Rodin Museum in Paris to make
its unpublished 3D scans of Auguste Rodin’s
sculptures accessible to the public,” Wenman
says. (All of Rodin’s works are in the public
domain.) “By this time next year, I hope to be
using this process to make high-fidelity, large-
scale bronze reproductions of The Thinker, The
Age of Bronze, The Gates of Hell.” —Mike Senese
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