What began with a 3D scan of Stephen Colbert’s head (who was subsequently turned into a terrifying teddy bear, Capitol Hill eagle-monster and tentacled Colbertopus – episode clip here) has turned into a 3D printing frenzy of NY Notables: “Hackers, bloggers, artists, musicians, comedians and anyone else we think is notable” as the MakerBot blog says.

MakerBot Industries marketing director Keith Ozar invited me round to their “creative space” and studio on Dean Street, covered my head and ‘stache with a blanket of corn starch (the 3D scanner is unable to render any hair that isn’t golden blonde), and I was then scanned by their current artist-in-residence Jonathan Monaghan, who has been digitally touching up the scans and then printing many dozen New Yorkers, miniaturized to approximate 4″ busts.

I intentionally went shirtless as I was going for a ‘caveman’ look, which I think was rendered quite well. Oh yeah and the best part about MakerBot is Thingiverse! You can totally download my likeness and print your own Nick Normal! Thanks Keith for the invite, Tom for the photos, Jonathan for the render and Bre for such a wonderful machine – this really is the future today!

An exhibition of around 40 New York Notables will take place at MakerBot HQ next Thursday, June 30th, from 7-10pm @ 314 Dean Street at 3rd Avenue in Brooklyn. I’ll be there from around 8:30 on. See you there!






A MakerBot in action, printing another Notable head, using a honeycomb structure to build up the sculpture:

[full photo set on my Flickr]