Coral

pinshape

I was experimenting with Blender's sculpt mode, but I have to admit it was pretty uninspired work... Just playing around, I noticed how trying to design a shape that could be printed without support material resembles the way coral grows underwater, stretching towards the surface where sunlight is plentiful. Additive 3D printing, despite its different goals, employs a similar process (ascending upwards from nothing). While messing around with half-spheres, I started thinking about additive manufacturing and how it works, and suddenly I found myself creating coral-like growths. This reminded me of what comics legend Mœbius said about drawing natural forms: to sketch a rock or tree, you need to become the rock or tree in your mind (and then branches and leaves). I think I grasped this concept better when, without intending to, I began thinking like a piece of coral and started growing upwards...