Relief Sculptures

In my last year or two of college I became enthralled with digital sculpting. At about the same time, I started a series of commissioned relief sculptures for Robin Lehman. We primarily produced a series of portraits featuring historical music composers. Other subjects included a grasshopper, a rhinoceros, ballet dancers, Abraham Lincoln, a toad, and an old photograph.

Each piece I was asked to create was 3D printed through an online service, then used as a mold to cast solid glass versions. All pieces were designed to be in a relatively deep relief and delivered as ZTools.

There wasn't very much information out there for me when I started so I've tried to document some of my workflows on my site. Feel free to comment for more information.

In creating my portrait of Lincoln, I gathered as many photo references as I could find and aligned them to rotate at the bridge of the nose.

Schubert was the first of many weird-haired composers.

Glasses on a deeper relief are tough, especially when they need to be printed.

My first portrait was of Verdi. For my first few pieces, I created a full 3D bust, then flattened it to the angle I wanted. I slowly learned why that was a bad idea and what sort of details needed to be corrected and exaggerated to make it work.