Feb 9, 2016 | By Kira
Get ready to feast your eyes and your creative soul: the Geek and Sundry fantasy photo shoot revealing actress and gamer Felicia Day modeling her own original, 3D printed cosplay armor designed by Melissa Ng has finally been released! We previously wrote about the 200+ hour creative design process that led to Ng designing and creating the stunning 3D printed Dream Regalia Armor, a custom-fitted, intricately detailed body suit, sponsored and flawlessly 3D printed by Shapeways 3D Printing Services.
While the photos of the creative process and the finished 3D printed Dream Regalia Armor were breathtaking in their own right—just like all of Ng’s fantasy 3D printed masks and wearable art—we’ve been waiting impatiently to see what the cosplay armor would actually look like on the counter-culture queen, Felicia Day. As a bonus, Day has released a heartfelt video explaining how she was originally approached by Ng, and how their connection as powerful, creative women with somewhat unconventional career paths immediately convinced her to participate in this ambitious and visionary project.
“Six months ago, I got an email from a fan named Melissa Ng, and she wrote the most beautiful note about how Codex from The Guild [Day’s self-created comedy web series] changed her life and helped her get out of her shell as well as follow her dreams,” explained Day. At the end of the note, Ng shared some of her fantasy 3D printed mask creations—intricate works of art, all 3D printed using Shapeways’ SLS 3D printing services to achieve a flawless level of quality and detail—and asked if Day would ever want her own custom-made 3D printed wearable.
The answer, according to Day, was a total no-brainer. “I am impressed and so grateful that I could contribute to her life and she could contribute to mine. That’s what art should be about.”
Six months and over 200 hours of design work later, the final result of their collaboration is complete. Inspired party partly from Guild Wars 2 armor, partly from Codex’s armor, and partly from the idea of an ‘Elven dream goddess’ (which pretty much describes Day’s spritely yet elegant demeanor), the 3D printed Dream Regalia Armor is a one-of-a-kind work of art, and could possibly represent an entirely new branch of cosplay: rather than embodying the costumes and strengths of existing characters, the Dream Regalia Armor is a completely original outfit, designed to elevate and draw out the wearer’s original beauty, strength, creativity and courage, even in the face of critics, and worse, self-criticism and self-doubt.
Indeed, the 3D printed Dream Regalia suit is an armor to “protect oneself against the cynics of the hardened 21st century,” writes Geek and Sundry, an armor to preserve ones vulnerability, “while also remaining a warrior.” Thus, the idea behind what it represents is just as important as the suit’s flawless, 3D printed execution.
Along with Day’s heartfelt video and the awesome photo shoot pictures (in which she dawns the costume, along with a variety of props and fantasy weapos), Geek and Sundry also released an interview with designer and creator Melissa Ng, who explained in further detail her ‘unorthodox’ background as an artist, and her relationship to Day: “I don’t come from an arts background. I come from a background of communication, public relations. I had a lot of people that ignored me in art arenas. There’s this expectation of an unspoken script, an assumption that [creators] should have some sort of known story that’s typical of artists. This is why I admire Felicia so much, her story of her acting career is not conventional in many ways,” said Ng.
Both women are creative and inspirational role models, whose strength comes as much from their successful careers as from their willingness to admit that sometimes, life is not easy, but you just have to push through and follow your dreams anyway.
Check out the entire photo shoot, shot my fantasy photographer Eric Anderson, over at Geek and Sundry, and find more of Melissa Ng’s 3D printed work over at her blog and design shop, Lumecluster.
Posted in 3D Printing Application
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