2016-02-23

The Spinning Jenny of sculpting...


... is of course the 3D-printer.

Anyone over the age of eleven should be familliar with the Spinning Jenny and the, now near-legendary reactions from the people she made unemployed. However, I learnt about her in a Swedish near-communist school, so I may be wrong, but what I was told is that The People(TM) rallied against the machines and smashed a couple of them and generally behaved like an unwashed mass of people, but the Progress was inevitable, even if the spinners and fabric-makers worked day and night to prove that a machine cannot replace a human hand.

Some people turned to drugs.

We all know what happened, the old school fossiles were made redundant and went on the equivalent of "the dole" (which at the time was called " the Drinking and Stealing" or "Dying of Hunger") and the rest got on with their lives in their newly woven machine-clothes. And then it happened again, in the 60's (maybe), when our Western textile factories moved to Bangladesh and India where the nimble little hands of children and very small women made our textiles even cheaper. Cue H&M, shit-fashion and other bad things, but that is for another blog post...
    My fear today is that sculptors will be replaced with 3D-craftsmen (notice the avoidance of the word "artist") and that all this stuff we have learnt was in vain and that we will have to either go smash all the 3D-printers in the world or just adapt/stop sculpting/go on the dole (yes, Perry's I am looking at you). When will we see sculptors whoring themselves out for cents in an effort to keep up with teens downloading kewl new models and print them at home?
     But then again, I look at my own regular printer and our shaky relationship, which is always a source of annoyance and sometimes even rage (to the great joy of my neighbours). Anyone that has ever worked in an office also know that 89% of the people and women working there has absolutely no clue on how to "fix the printer" - how could we humans ever learn to print our own models en masse if we can't even get the regular printer to work? Maybe the same stupidity that made us smash Spinning Jennies will save sculpting in the future? Who knows.

The future of Europe looks dark.

That's all I had to say on the matter, and with that, I bid you adieu, and until next time, remember that it aint over 'til the crazy guy sings:


PS) Next update will hopefully be the Jarn Mountain War Wagon. Finally something more hobby-related on the blog... But you need to have some text also.


2 kommentarer:

  1. Hmm, I don't know... if I thought ink for my printer is expensive, well then the plastic for a 3D printer also costs cashdollar. However, that is not the main reason for me not considering getting a 3D printer. The main reason why I'm not considering getting a 3D printer is because actually I prefer hand sculpted miniatures. There is something about them, probably the extra time and love (and hate, rage, impatience and aggravation) put into scraping chewing gum into toy soldierish shapes adds something special to hand sculpts. Methinks... ;D

    SvaraRadera
    Svar
    1. Llama (not logged in) here:

      I might be inclined to agree, but in the future, I am not so sure... the printed ones I have seen all look really nice, but they still have those little "pixels" or gradations. A well made GW model (that started it's life as 3D-file) has a lot of strenghts.

      Personally, I will never stop sculpting, it is an interesting thought however. Just like a lot hobbyists still make sew their own clothes or make handemade leather bags etc, there will - IMO - always be a place for handmade models, for the reasons you state above.

      Radera