Feb.3, 2015 | By Alec
Over the last year or so, we’ve increasingly seen the art world opening up to 3D printing technology, slowly but certainly. Especially high-quality 3D printing has started being recognised as a legitimate artistic tool. But few artists have welcomed 3D printing as enthusiastically as the French pop artist and pioneer of ‘geek art’ Grégoire Guillemin, also known by his artistic name Léon. With an eye on his first publication as well as a new exhibition, he has teamed up with Swiss 3D printing provider nyce to develop two absolutely stunning 3D sculptures that perfectly capture his ‘geek art’ style.
While some of you might’ve never heard of Léon before, you have probably seen some of his geek art around on the web. Over the past two years he has been working on two inspiring, fun and beautiful series called ‘Secret Life Of Heroes’ and ‘Pop Icons’ that largely revolve around the same concept: To portray superheroes and icons from movies, comic books and games in humorous everyday situations.
While this might not sound like a subject ‘legitimate’ artists should play with, it came very natural to the 47-year-old Grégoire Guillemin, who always refused to let his childhood passions fade away. Science fiction, comic books, and video games still play a great role in his life and work, and he therefore naturally rose to the forefront of the Geek Art movement. Tellingly, he doesn’t call himself an artist, but instead an “Eclectic Graphical Gamer.”
As he himself explains, "It all started when I observed how we only get to see heroes saving the day in comics and movies, but never peek into their down-time the way we do with celebrities, for instance. That's why I created the “Secret Life of Heroes" series, simply imagining my favorite heroes in their not-so-interesting domestic lives doing not-so-extraordinary activities. Later with the “Pop Icons” series, I extended my work to other parodic subjects, mixing symbols, brands, stars and characters together to put them in funny situations while keeping the same aesthetics and techniques I used with heroes."
You might have seen some of the results around; Wonder Woman stuffing her bra and dealing with a wedgie, Spiderman eating a burger, Batman brushing his teeth (and in one even kissing Robin). As for the pop icons series, you can see Darth Vader smoking a sigar (entitled ‘Dark Breath’), Ronald MacDonald picking his nose, Mickey Mouse holding up a condom, Scrooge McDuck reading Das Kapital. The concept itself is fun, but as you can see the results are more than just that; Léon has reinterpretations of pop icons that make them more believable and human.
It’s hardly surprising that this potent combination of art and mainstream culture has caught on; over the past two years, Grégoire’s agenda was completely filled with exhibitions all over the world, while orders were coming in at a maddening rate. All this, as he explains to us, inspired him to take his work to the next level in two different ways: one, to publish a book filled with the best and greatest of his Heroes series, and secondly, to take his work into the third dimension through 3D printed sculptures.
His book, which launches on Kickstarter today, is a gorgeous collection and publication that would be at home on the shelf of anyone with geekish tendencies. It’s called "For Your Eyes Only" and is essentially an anthology of his ‘Secret Life of Heroes series’. As he explains on his Kickstarter, "The idea for this book took root months ago when I was compiling my work for a new exhibition. The idea got quickly prototyped on an online book printing service, providing a cheap paperback edition. But the quality sucked, it was too expensive and I wanted to provide my fans with the best product."
The book, which basically has an LP format, certainly looks wonderful, and you can get your hands on it by pledging support to his campaign. To cover the publishing costs, the artist is looking to raise $30,000, while a pledge of $35 will be enough to get your hands on an early bird copy (shipping in June 2015).
But perhaps more exciting for us are Léon’s experiments with 3D printing technology. As he explained to 3ders.org: "I wanted to go further than plane canvas for my work with 'Secret Life Of Heroes’, that’s why I worked with nyce (at the time they called themselves PrintaBit) and so far I have completed 2 pieces with them, which I am very proud of." The two sculptures, called ‘Tweety & Sylvester’ (above) and ‘Happy’ (below) are reinterpretations of some of own favourite pieces.
As he went on to explain, both were developed in collaboration with Swiss 3D printing provider nyce, with whom Léon designed the works using zbrush. The final products were first prototyped with Makerbot 3D printers, before being 3D printed in polychromed resin using SLA5000 3D printers. As the guys from nyce revealed to us, "parts like these take around 20 hours printing alone, then some curing. There have been nearly 50 hours designing them. And another 50 hours painting and curing. Also these artwork feature a uniquely coded RFID chip in their core in order to securely identify them."
The gorgeous paint job was achieved with acryclic paint, and Léon is very happy with the final results. "What I think is interesting in these artworks is how liberated from the plane world they feel," he told us. And fortunately for all you hardcore Léon fans out there, these sculptures have two functions: firstly, to as exhibition pieces; ‘Tweety & Sylvester’ has already been exhibited at several galleries in Paris, Geneva, Manhattan and other locations, while ‘Happy’ will premiere during Léon’s solo show in Paris next week.
However, you can also get your hands on editions of both sculptures through supporting the Kickstarter for the "For Your Eyes Only” book; a pledge of $2500 will get you a smaller version of one of the two sculptures, while $9900 will get you a full sized one (alongside the book, of course). If that’s too steep for you, you’ll have to be patient as they will probably be made available through the nyce website in the future.
Posted in 3D Printing Applications
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