This week’s selection is the life-size Avatar sculptures by Gentle Giant Studios.
We were able to see these sculptures in person at last week’s Rapid+TCT event in Los Angeles, which just happens to be the home base for Gentle Giant Studios. The studio was able to set up quite a large display of many movie characters, presenting countless selfie opportunities for attendees.
Gentle Giant Studios is one of the most well-known services due to their frequent high profile work, but they also provide quite a breadth of services. These include design, 3D scanning, fabrication, additive manufacturing, prototyping and more.
We were also able to speak with one of the key people behind the sculptures and Gentle Giant Studios, Jason Lopes. We’ve known Jason for over ten years now, and he’s been involved in many movie productions, including the famous Iron Man suit from years ago.
The sculptures are life-sized, but far, far taller than normal humans. In the movie, the Na’vi species can be 3m tall, which is approximately the height of this pair. Humans posing with the sculptures were dwarfed by the tall characters.
Why print these characters? The project was to produce them for a Disney marketing display, which obviously would attract considerable attention. If passing by, you’d stop and take a good look, wouldn’t you?
The prints were produced using an unspecified large-format SLA 3D printer, and according to Jason, were made in several parts that were assembled. Modeling was done with ZBrush and prepped for printing with Materialise’s Magics.
The material listed was Accura Xtreme, which is made by 3D Systems. However, that does not necessarily imply the printer used was from 3D Systems; their materials can be used in other equipment. On the other hand, Gentle Giant Studios does list a large format iPro 8000 from 3D Systems.
Here you can see the detail applied to the print. The surface was precisely painted to match the characters, and some non-printed components were added, such as the hair.
The market for similar character installations isn’t huge, but when these are done they are incredibly impressive when seen in person. If you ever find yourself near a large-format installation like these, stop and take a closer look.
