This British artist turned his Tilt Brush art into a real 3D printed sculpture.
Artist Jonathan Yeo was able to completely design and create his own self-portrait in VR using Tilt Brush, which he then 3D printed the sculpture to live both in the real world and virtual.
“As a portrait artist who primarily works with oil paint in two dimensions, drawing in three-dimensional space was unknown territory for me,” Yeo said. “Until recently, I’ve never created art using VR technology, but with Google Arts and Culture and the help of Tilt Brush engineers, I brought VR and sculpture together to create something that was more than just an experiment.”
Yeo started by scanning his head using a facial-scanning service, often used for creating characters in video games, and then imported his scan into Tilt Brush. He then painted his self-portrait in VR in Tilt Brush. Once complete, the artist had the sculpture 3D printed and cast in bronze.
“Using virtual reality, I could explore sculpting using the skills developed in my painting practice and within my own studio environment,” Yeo said. “What’s really exciting is how the final bronze structure precisely captures the free, expressive movements that were previously only possible in paintings.”
Yeo is a highly acclaimed portrait artist who has honed in on a self-taught specific style to his portraits. He often paints celebrities or figures of notoriety — he has painted George W. Bush, Ryan Gosling and most recently model Cara DeLevingne.
In his artwork, he employees a unique blend of realism, including specific detail in his characters, with impressionism or even abstract splashes of color. This marriage, allows for his portraits to feel both very real like you could reach out and touch the face of his muse, but also dreamy and abstract — which translates so beautifully to this VR project that maintains this same balance of real and virtual.
This project, like so many other VR art projects defining the new medium, is certainly original and groundbreaking and will likely influence other artists breaking into VR art.
Image Credit: Google
