Make It Real: 3D Printing Competition

Posted on May 14, 2013 by victoria

3D printing is not a fiction anymore. It’s everywhere now. 3D printed edible food is a reality: pasta is being served in Google office already. Some people have changed melted plastic into cookie dough-filled syringe, use the same software and 3D print nothing else, but cookies. “Nike” has already printed cleat for the shoes. 3D printed acoustic guitar plays no worse than a usual one. A couple of journalists brought 3D printed gun on a plane without any security inspection.

So we decided to wait no longer. At this very moment CGTrader is opening up the 3D printing competition!

If you ever had a dream to make your favourite 3D character real, it is about to come true. So, are you ready to 3D print it? CGTrader is looking for new talents and calls all designers to step into this exciting technology. Acquire fresh modeling skills and enhance your creativity!

Could you try to guess what is the grand prize?

That’s right – the winners will receive two stunning Ultimaker 3D printers! In order to remember the childhood the winners will have to construct them themselves! You will also receive 3D printer filaments from FILACO, a gift card for 3D printing from Sculpteo and 3D printing of the winning model by 3D Print UK. Runners-up will also receive striking prizes. Who on the Earth would not be fascinated to have their own 3D models showcased in iMakr, the largest 3D printing store in the world?

To participate in the 3D printing competition, CGTrader does not ask for anything impossible. No pressure to turn iron into the gold. No trips to the Mars and back. All you have to do is: a) Upload your 3D print-ready models for sale or for download to CGTrader; b) Be sure they are 3D printable and in .STL format; c) Mark them as ‘print-ready’; d) Do it until the 30th of June. It is more than easy and we call it a challenge!

Nominations
There are two categories of awards in this competition. Each of them will hold one winner and two runners-up.

Best 3D Printable Portfolio
A designer will be awarded based on all 3D printable models uploaded during the competition period, judging them by both quantity and quality.

Prizes
For the winner:

Ultimaker 3D Printer (Kit). Enhance your experience by constructing it yourself!
3D printing your model of choice by 3D Print UK
200 USD gift card for filaments from FILACO
An opportunity to sell your 3D model in the largest 3D printing store in the world iMakr
150 USD gift card for 3D printing from Sculpteo
Publicity for the winner by iMakr
1 year, unlimited IP based subscription to grab your inspiration by Stash
200 USD in CGTrader credits and CGTrader‘s mug and T-shirt

For the two runner-ups:

100 USD gift card for filaments from FILACO
An opportunity to sell your 3D model in the largest 3D printing store in the world iMakr
50 USD gift card for 3D printing from Sculpteo
Individual user access subscriptions to grab your inspiration by Stash
100 USD in CGTrader credits and CGTrader‘s mug and T-shirt

Best 3D Printable Model
The award will be given for the best 3D printable model uploaded during the competition period, judging it in terms of quality and professionalism.

Prizes
For the winner:

Ultimaker 3D Printer (Kit)
200 USD gift card for filaments from FILACO
An opportunity to sell your 3D model in the largest 3D printing store in the world iMakr
150 USD gift card for 3D printing from Sculpteo
Publicity for the winner by iMakr
1 year, unlimited IP based subscription to grab your inspiration by Stash
200 USD in CGTrader credits and CGTrader‘s mug and T-shirt

For two runner-ups:

100 USD gift card for filaments from FILACO
An opportunity to sell your 3D model in the largest 3D printing store in Europe iMakr
50 USD gift card for 3D printing from Sculpteo
Individual user access subscriptions to grab your inspiration Stash
100 USD in CGTrader credits and CGTrader‘s mug and T-shirt

Is anyone here still doubting? Upload your 3D model right now!

These 3D models turn into real ones with a help of Ultimaker 3D Printer! Visit www.ultimaker.com!

Using Words To Sell 3D Models

Posted on May 9, 2013 by victoria

Imagine that 3D model marketplace is like a huge supermarket with hundreds of showcases…

I doubt if you would be attracted to buy any goods that are scattered all around. Let’s say you have walked around the marketplace three times already and you are not able to find, where the milk is. The fact that there is no indicated price in the same shelf, would definitely confuse a you. The same is at the online marketplaces. All you have to do is to make the trading pleasant by providing attractive and buyable products. Simple logic.

So what is golden formula for your product description?

When Reality Fades Away: Surrealism Invades 3D Art

Posted on May 3, 2013 by victoria

Watches. Heat. Melting. Awry forms. Devastated settings. Torsos of the dreams. It coalesces. Then it detaches. Surreal visual art reminds us of something. Actually, it awakens the most latent parts of ourselves.

Surrealism is like a potion, made in the 1920s for the first time. But it still flourishes and inspires contemporary artists. Surrealism is being used as kind of therapeutics, enabling the artists to analyse the depth of human nature by mixing the most distinct feelings and experiences together.

“Surrealist manifesto” was written in 1924. There surrealism was defined as “philosophy, based on the belief in superior reality of certain forms of previously neglected associations, in the omnipotence of dream, in the disinterested play of thought”. Salvador Dali is considered to be the Duke of surrealism. People, who do not know about surrealism, definitely know about Dali. When he was formally expelled from the Surrealist group, the artist only replied “I myself am surrealism”. S. Dali’s early work “The Persistence of Memory”, a painting set in some kind of existential desert, depicts melting pocket watches and stands as one of the best surreal painting examples ever made.

Surrealism surprises and will never be played out. It invaded the whole art of 3D and reality just fades away. Surrealism stimulates to write one’s dreams down every morning, to free the mind and indulge into a process of automatic creativity. 3D artists impart their inner state of mind into each artwork. Some of them seek for the meditation and others share their dark sides of the moons.

Self-examination, alienation, loneliness, madness, sadness, euphoria, mania, suspicion of a gone dream and all the possible human feelings create a particular and peculiar atmosphere of every work of a 3D designer. Tree-dimensional art makes surrealism to thrive: while providing precise level of photorealism, it includes the most unreal objects, forms and design decisions. I am wondering, if Salvador Dali had such tools, how would his most prominent painting look like?

Grab your inspiration for the mind-blowing masterpiece, while exploring this gallery of surreal 3D artwork.

Caravan Dali by Aram Vardazaryan.

Just imagine what would happen if S.Dali would live nowadays…

Best 3D Models of March

Posted on April 26, 2013 by victoria

Finally, the sky turned blue. And we keep moving forward. New Year-made promises are step by step being fulfilled within our team. The long-awaited new CGTrader’s system has been launched in the beginning of April. CGTrader left the amazon model and went eBay. Our 3D object library is rapidly expanding: March has brought a tremendous amount of fresh and creative 3D models. Jeez, I am sure now, 3D allows you to design anything. Any-thing.

Extraordinary interior details, conceptual car models, anatomical layers, architectural solutions, simple, but genius household items, ancient reliefs, mind-blowing sculptures, dream followed cartoon characters, heady aircrafts, photorealistic portraits, whirling planets, UNESCO architectural heritage…Indeed, the world moves into 3D reality and God is no longer responsible for it. Our top of the Best 3D Models of March concentrates on different shapes, distinct techniques, innovation, thoroughness and meticulous work of 3D artists. Get inspired!

Gnomon School: The Fast Track To VFX Industry

Posted on April 23, 2013 by victoria

The development of 3D technology sees no boundaries. Nowadays the amount of 3D effects in movies easily breaks the limits of fantasy. The last animation “The Croods” made by “DreamWorks” required 80 million hours of rendering. If the rendering was performed on a single computer, it would have had to keep rendering the information for 9,127 years in order to finish it. There are thousands of tools, but not enough 3D artists to control them properly.

And it is not the 168 hour working week that could scare 3D designers. But there are actually not that many qualified places on Earth to learn and acquire the real art of visual effects. Most of the forums all around the web twinkle with posts asking which one of the schools is the best to really learn to govern VFX tools. Almost each answer (seriously, no exaggeration) highlights a Hollywood-based Gnomon School of Visual Effects as a must-attend school of dreams. So..is it really the Mecca of visual effects ?

Steampunk in 3D design: Travel Back “20’000 Leagues Under The Sea”

Posted on April 17, 2013 by victoria

Whaaaat..? What is that ‘steampunk’? Definitely, most of you have had some dreams and fantasies in the childhood, where you were time travelling dressed as an astronaut with a steam-powered jet-set and a bag full of coal to launch it.

So, steampunk is a symbolical form of romanticism mixed with technology, seeping both into arts and culture since the 1980s. Aesthetic British Victorian era, American “Wild-Wild West” lunacy, steam-powered technologies – all of these convey direct inspiration to nowadays. This particular genre has conquered all possible forms of art.

The concept was brought to life in a letter sent to science-fiction magazine “Locus” in 1987 by American sci-fi and horror writer K.W.Jeter. He was trying to distinguish himself and his fellows, who were in love with sci-fi technologies in retro style, from the futuristic cyberpunks by saying: “Personally, I think Victorian fantasies are going to be the next big thing, as long as we can come up with a fitting collective term for Powers, Blaylock and myself. Something based on a appropriate technology of that era; like “steampunks” perhaps…”.
Refill your coal bag and read more!

Stories Behind The Image by Tomas Kral

Posted on April 2, 2013 by victoria

“Mostly I care about the story or thought that I put into the image to make it come to life” Tomas Kral

Tomas Kral was still at school, when he realised that drawing is something he is really good at. It has been four years already since Tomas Kral has started working as a senior team leader for visual effects and post production house “UPP” in Prague, Czech Republic. He had a chance to take care of visual effects for such feature movies as “2012“, “Red Tails“, ”Season of the Witch“, “Salt” and “Pandorum“. Tomas Kral is a well-known 3D designer, whose artwork has been published in the top magazines of the 3D industry. Moreover, this artist is the first one to land a 3D modeled man on the moon.

Space Waltz

Read an interview!

Results Are In: Winners of 3D Model Competition

Posted on March 22, 2013 by victoria

For a few days already we have been receiving emails from you. The question was: “Sooo, who are the winners of a competition?”. We told to wait a bit. And we were answered that there are some of you, who cannot. So, finally we stopped discussing…

Challenge was accepted. And winners are selected!

But wait, wait a little bit more. Yes, I know that you can scroll down, but wait. Enjoy that pleasant feeling before you find the results out. There is something to be said.

We have to admit that this 3D Model Competition was extremely exciting. The entire month your 3D models were flowing to our marketplace shelves as a stirring mountain spring. We are more than happy because of that. Are you ready to check the results out?

A Good Look at The Real World by Marek Denko

Posted on March 18, 2013 by victoria

Marek Denko is a 3D designer who attracted the whole computer graphics community with his artwork. The artist had no training in the field of 3D design. But he was always learning from his own mistakes and successes.

Marek Denko’s first job in the industry was as a low polymodeling freelancer for a company in Bratislava. Today he is a world-known 3D designer. The designer’s artwork is highly distinctive with a peculiar touch of his. It definitely bewitches with the level of realism and intense atmosphere. Marek Denko shares with us the secrets of his profession, inspirations, and reveals how to find a way in the labyrinth of computer graphics world.

Sunrise of the 80′s

Read an interview!

731 Days of Dream Catching

Posted on March 15, 2013 by victoria

This morning has started with a cup of coffee and a huge piece of sweet cake in the office. Smells like a birthday. And it definitely is.

Today CGTrader has a two year birthday anniversary. It means that 731 days have already passed by catching a dream and making it real. No, this Friday is not a day-off for us. All together we go further.

This is the reason why I would like to thank for each member of our small team publicly. It is fascinating that all of them are the best in a particular spheres. So, all the time they are making the best of it. Of course, everyone has black days, but there are bright ones afterwards. Read more!

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