Will 3D Printed selfies be the next big thing for merchandise and marketing?
If you ask me yes! I think there’s something interesting with a 3D Printed Selfie. Instead of your typical poster or business card, giving away a 3D Printed model of yourself could be what sets you apart at a job interview, creative meeting or a way to send personal messages to friends and family.
Selling yourself as a miniature
There are platforms setup for YouTubers and celebrities to sell T-shirts and hoodies super easily already. I believe the next step could be to sell 3D Printed selfies and miniatures of yourself as collectibles.
Fans love to support you and if they can get something like an unique 3D Printed selfie back it’s going to be an epic win-win scenario.
3D Printing allows for customization at level never before seen.
3D Printing allows for customization at no extra cost in manufacturing. This mean you could customize every single sale.
An example would be a numbered 3D Printed selfie, making it a truly unique collectors item.
Tom (Syndicate) could create 3D Printed selfies with a “You’re a Wizzard [name]!” which would be a totally unique way to support his streams and truly get something unique while doing it.
Or how about our favorite “Fortnite” streamer Ninja would sell 3D Printed Selfie merch of his mean Pon-Pon face?
Business cards to set you apart
Creating a 3D Printed Selfie with added contact information is probably the best way of handing out a business card for someone important.
Obviously it’s a bit expensive to hand away hundreds at a trade fair but targeting someone important that you need to impress, this would certainly set you apart from others.
How to create a 3D Printed selfie
The process of creating a 3D Printed selfie requires either a great 3D Modeller or a 3D Scanner. To be honest, something both.
3D modelling services can vary in cost, but good 3D sculptor can create a 3D selfie from a couple of images around your face in the pose you want. These are to consider as interpretations since they don’t actually get any 3D-data from the images.
The best 3D Printed selfies are of course going to be made with a 3D scanner.
Where to get hold of a 3D Scanner
I’ve talked about the 3D Systems Sense in the video below, which is a great scanner for this scanning faces for facebook and social media posting of 3D models.
The 3D Systems sense is around $549 and is NOT the best 3D Scanner for everything, it’s however one of the easiest while being portable and still cheap in comparison to others.
The 3D Sense great for scanning heads, but please be aware that it’s not perfect and you will not capture small things like dimples.
Recently, a new scanner called “RevoPoint POP 2” has been filling a void between the high-end and low-end scanners. Check it out here.
To move up to a great scanner you want to rent or visit someone who uses 3D scanners like Artec EVA or Einscan Pro+. Such service of 3D scanning your head should be around 100-300 USD depending on quality and equipment used.
In this video I use the Artec EVA 3D scanner to do a live demo of scanning a head (to be used as a 3D Printed Selfie)
Where do I make my 3D Printed Selfie?
So if you’re actually looking to produce the selfies for sale or massive giveaways you need to print them obviously. Printing them one at a time on your machine at home could be tedious. This selfie is printed with a Peopoly Moai SLA 3D Printer and took overnight to finish. Not really efficient.
If you want to understand these 3D Printing techniques that can handle 3D Printed selfies I recommend reading this article I made on 3D Printing Techniques.
I would recommend looking at techniques that are slightly more expensive per part, but could allow 50-100pcs being printed overnight. This leads us to SLS 3D Printing from services like 3D hubs or Shapeways.
Printing on demand with SLS is a great benefit since you get make the sales before manufacturing and usually the costs scale and are bound to parts printed.
If you’re looking for help implementing the whole workflow for events or merchandise, 3D Consulting nordic is more than happy to help out.
If you’re not ready to 3D Print your 3D Selfies you can always upload them to Sketchfabb so people can turn them (like I did with my buddy Daniel Noree, Creator of #3Dbenchy and OpenRC):
Did you create a 3D Printed selfie our find a service that provides them?