Tag: bones

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Art bones Toys

3DKitBash: Your Source for 3-D Skull Models

kitbash1You felt like a Mad Scientist, didn’t you, the day you got that 3-D printer, whether it was a MakerBot, a Cube or a home-brewed RepRap… but, admit it, the let-down set in as soon as you tried printing your own skulls. Brain bones are wickedly cool but also notoriously complex items to model. The devious geniuses at 3DKitBash have you covered with their high quality digital 3-D models, shown here printed in an oddly appropriate hunter’s orange.

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Their “BoneHeads” collection features models of various skulls, including dragon, sabre-tooth and alligator, all rendered with lovingly organic-feeling texture. At least of couple of the models even have working jaws and I noticed one of the collections came with a femur model, handy for printing an actual skull and crossed bones. But any rec-room Dr. Frankenstein knows the demented potential for mix and match given 3-D files. 3DKitBash is already ahead of you. A human skull with the ram horns makes a quite effective demon skull but frankly, my favorite bit of kitbashing was their jackalope skull. Alas, I didn’t get a good photo of it but it’s prominently displayed on their website. Be sure to download the wall trophy base, when you buy a collection so you can display your skull… that is, unless you’re planning to insert it into the head of your next nightmare creature. Be sure to check out the “Free and Cheap” section to grab the “Monster Parts” collection.
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Elsa and I had a pleasant chat with Quincy Robinson and Natalie Mathis of 3DK at the Maker Faire Detroit this past weekend. Quincy was a professional toy designer before launching 3DK a little over a year ago with a remarkable 3D printable fashion doll named Quin. They’ve run a couple successful Kickstarter campaigns including one for a rather ingenious kit to test the calibration of your 3D printer. It’s exciting to find creative folks making cool stuff in the Midwest– 3DKitbash is based in Cinncinnati! And popular stuff too: their “3DK Launcher” toy, a free download from their site, has had over 22,000 downloads.

I get it, seriously I do. You’re an Evil Genius, so I know you *could* learn CAD software, wrangle your own scans, burn through a million test prints and come up with your own 3-D skull models. But wouldn’t you rather just print some first-rate skulls and get on with your other plans for World Domination? If so, 3DKitbash is your Igor.

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This Just In

Of ossuaries and sex ghosts

How exciting would it be to discover great grandfather was a grave robber?

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Paul Koudounaris reveals this history and more in an interview in the Hairpin. Koudounaris is an author, photographer and art historian, with an interest in ossuaries, charnel houses, and sex ghosts.

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He is the author of The Empire of Death: A Cultural History of Ossuaries and Charnel Houses. He also runs a website dedicated to some of the more macabre themes, Empire de la Mort.

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Movies

“Rot” – Stop Motion Decomposition Short

This little video gem popped up around the web (io9.com, boingboing.net, etc) but I loved it so much I just had to share it here too. Double plus good, eh? It’s the proper length, not too long, not too short. The animation effect is smooth enough. The frame composition is nice to have the face AND an item in the background. And it goes beyond being a simple makeup test. About the only thing I can say of a critical nature is that there aren’t anywhere near enough maggots and that there would have been a great “bloom” of them long before our hero turned to bones. But quibbles. Enjoy!

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Other Haunts This Just In

This Just In: The Bones in Satan’s Grotto are REAL


I suppose we file this one under art imitating life too closely. Or perhaps not bothering to “imitate” at all, just “cut and paste.” A tourist dungeon in London, UK discovered recently that some of the bones displayed proudly in their “Satan’s Grotto” — I gather it’s an annual, Mid-December feature, y’know, for the holidays — were actual human remains. I believe I’ve seen that situation in at least three separate TV shows. The most interesting part of the article to me is that the dungeon could have continued to display the remains if they paid an annual £ 2,000 “license fee” to the “Tissue Authority.” Now THAT’S a work-related sit-com I’d like to see on TV. Part tax-collectors / part CSI, they’re The Bone Guard.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-16037506

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Other Haunts

Other Haunts: Comparative Skeletons

I am a serious fan of skeletal systems, those bits of organic sculpture / architecture that each of us carry around inside us — pardon, of course to the readers of this blog that are cephalopod or who have exoskeletons. You critters are too wonderful for mention. Don’t go changing.

So imagine my delight when I found eskeletons.org, an electronic archive of primate skeletons. (http://eskeletons.org/index.html)

Certainly IMHO the skulls are the coolest, like this multi-view scan of a human skull but the other bones are fascinating as well.

The only thing you can’t do with these bones is make broth.

http://www.eskeletons.org/