28-10-2015

3D Printing and Halloween

Author: Louise Lazell

Halloween excites me. Every year I look forward to carving a pumpkin and spending hours painstakingly attempting my best cat-pumpkin design. Unfortunately, they do not always have the realistic look I hope for. While there are some extremely talented artists who are able to carve 3D masterpieces by hand, alas I am not one of them.

Author: Louise Lazell

AttributionSome rights reserved by creative_tools

Halloween excites me. Every year I look forward to carving a pumpkin and spending hours painstakingly attempting my best cat-pumpkin design. Unfortunately, they do not always have the realistic look I hope for. While there are some extremely talented artists who are able to carve 3D masterpieces by hand, alas I am not one of them.

Fortunately I can now turn to 3D printing for help. Unless you have been living under rock – 3D printed or otherwise – you’ll know that pretty much almost anything can or will soon be able to be produced with 3D printing technology. This provides businesses and consumers with a new creative tool to take events and celebrations like Halloween to the next level, including printing your very own pumpkin. In this way, modern technology is playing a key role is helping to ensure these traditions carry on.

While still on the Halloween theme, I also love the idea of personalised sweets, which can be created by 3D printers using edible materials like chocolate or sugar infused flavours. This year in Berlin, a 3D printing gummy maker was launched allowing you to print gummy sweets in under 10 minutes.  Can you imagine it?! I may be an adult, but I’m still excited by the prospect of watching my own customised sweets appear before my eyes!

Furthermore, if you wanted to ‘trick’ your guests, you can buy crunchy sweet snacks that are made up of ground up bugs, which are then 3D printed into interesting shapes (apparently to discourage people getting grossed out by the idea of eating bugs). With the four main ingredients being mealworms, dung beatles and crickets, personally I don’t think the shape would make it any more appealing…but it’s a truly wicked idea as trick.

Recent Halloweens have also seen a relaxing in what constitutes a suitable costume for trick or treating, so for those looking beyond ‘sexy cats’ and vampires, now is perfect opportunity to dress up as your favourite super heroes. As a huge fan of the modern Batman franchise, I would definitely opt for a ‘Catwoman’ costume, especially taking into consideration how impressive some of the 3D printed batman costumes are.

Julian Checkley’s attempt is a great example. He based his 3D printed masterpiece on the 2013 video game ‘Batman: Arkham Origins’ and while not quite in my price range at €8000, it looks amazing nonetheless.

But, despite all the endless options of 3D printing, I have to admit that if were to do my own experimenting this year, it would have to be these tasty looking chocolate skulls, where the mould is made with 3D printed food-safe silicone. 3D printed chocolate heaven.

Have you seen any cool 3D printing applications for Halloween this year? Let us know below!

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