Is There A Market For 3D Printed Art?

Kicking off 3D Print Art Week, Tom and Tracy Hazzard discuss the booming 3D Printed Art market and some of the excellent work they have already seen out there. They share ways to get more recognition for the value of art that is 3D Printing. They also talk about how you should value your art and have full control when you let others view it.

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Listen to the podcast here:

Is There A Market For 3D Printed Art?

This is Ask Us Anything segment.

Almost anything. This episode is all about art. The art world has been taking 3D printing and doing some fabulous things.

What’s the question?

Is there a market for 3D print art?

That’s an easy yes. Let’s talk about why and where.

There should be a market for any art. Artists already have a market. We’ve been seeing a lot of art and sculpture popping up on P inshape, Cul ts 3 D, Shapeways, and all of these websites. There is a lot of art popping up of things that are not useful objects. They may still be small. We’re also seeing a lot of bigger things popping up like some of those fabulous art pieces we saw at the trade show in Burbank.

The single biggest exhibit at the entire 3D printing expo in Burbank was about art. It wrapped around the entire perimeter of the show space.

It was fascinating. It was so much better than anything that I’ve seen come out of any of the sample prints. These were pushing envelopes.

These were intricate and large.

Some of them were pieced together. Some of them were built that way. They may have created them small and then have them molded bigger or whatever.

3D Printed Art Market: Price your art for what it should go for in any medium.

Some artists use 3D printing to make positives for lost wax casting, ceramics and foundry things. There are many ways you use it. Some artists are using it as the materials that you can print things in.

There definitely is a market for it. I’ve seen a report where they’re saying that the art is priced high. Of course, it’s priced high, it’s art.

When people comment that they’re priced too high, they don’t have an appreciation for everything that goes into making that piece of art. They think that because a printer is printing it, it should be cheap. That printer may be printing it for 200 hours straight, depending on what kind of printer that is.

People don’t appreciate that. As an artist, you need to put out the number of hours you put into this. It’s something that we say all the time. You need to value that design time and your artistic time taken. Maybe it’s faster than the old method of wax molding or whatever way that you did it before, but it doesn’t lessen the artistic time.

That’s what people don’t understand. We saw this beautiful sculpture of a sofa at CES that was the highlight of it. I think it Stratasys’ or 3 D Systems’ booth, one of those big companies. It was a beautiful piece of art that took over 100 hours to print. They didn’t even talk about how long it took the artists to create that.

Find a venue where you can mention that. Talk about it in your description. Put about your art focus. That’s why 3D print bureaus are not the place for art. I’ve seen a lot of Etsy artists using 3D printing. You should absolutely put that in the description, but 3D printing is besides the point.

It’s art and it’s one more medium that you can use. It’s a medium that gives you some new possibilities and particular advantages in certain processes or augments an old school process and making it new.

I definitely think there’s a market for it. Go for it and don’t underprice. It’s your art. Price it for what your art should go for in any medium. Thank you so much for asking. If you want to ask us anything else about art design, 3D printing, anything, you can go to our website at HazzD esign.c om. Go anywhere on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, you name it. @HazzD esign is our handle. You can send us a voicemail, send us an email or whatever method you’d like. Get a question to us.

We’d love to hear from you.

Thanks again.

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Listen to the podcast here:

Is There A Market For 3D Printed Art?

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