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Nickolay Lamm of MyDeals.com
barbie
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Please credit Nickolay Lamm of MyDeals.com
Regular Barbie stood next to the 3D printed "normal" Barbie
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Nickolay Lamm of MyDeals.com
Photoshop overlaid onto the 3D printed normal Barbie
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Please credit Nickolay Lamm of MyDeals.com
The traditional Barbie is much taller than "normal" Barbie
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Nickolay Lamm of MyDeals.com
3D printed Barbie next to a pre-packed Barbie
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Nickolay Lamm of MyDeals.com
What a "Normal" Barbie might look like in packaging
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Nickolay Lamm of MyDeals.com
The measuring process for "normal" Barbie
MAKIE dolls, pretty much, have the consumer 3D printed doll cornered, especially now the PM and Prince Harry have their own ones. But another 3D printed doll has grabbed several headlines this week, a 3D printed Barbie.
What’s so special about a 3D printed Barbie I hear you ask? This isn’t an ordinary Barbie , or is it exactly that? Ordinary...
Barbie has often been criticised for having proportions that could only be acheived through anorexia and the company, Mattel, are not adverse to a spot of controversy in body issue matters. In 1963, the outfit "Barbie Baby-Sits" came with a book entitled How to Lose Weight which advised: "Don't eat!"
Research artist Nickolay Lamm has decided to restructure Barbie’s traditional, ridiculous proportions and create a “normal” Barbie, he told Personalize, “I've read research and opinions suggesting that Barbie may or may not negatively affect young girls' body image. This means that there's a chance that Barbie harms young girls. If normal Barbie looks good, why not remove all doubt?”
Lamm’s ‘normal Barbie’ is designed to the proportions of a regular 19-year-old girl as opposed to the neck breaking proportions of regular Barbie. Scaled up, Barbie’s vital statistics would be 36-18-33, whereas a typical 19-year-old girl's are 32-31-33.
University of Pittsburgh graduate, Lamm, designed a 3D model of what he believed a Barbie should look like, he then 3D printed the design to get a better feeling for the doll, “I was aware of 3D printing when it first began. I had to have a 3D printed model so that it would serve as the outline for the Photoshop stage.” Said Nickolay, “If I didn't have a physical model, there'd be too much guess-work involved in drawing the normal Barbie from scratch. I found a local 3D printing shop called pittsburgh-3d.com. They took care of the 3D printing after I sent them the 3D model.”
After having the model made Nickolay was able to overlay imagery over the 3D print to create a realistic looking Barbie doll, which, as he states himself, does looks good.
Having used the 3D printing process for this project Lamm feels the technology could have the power to disrupt traditional toy manufacture, “3D printing has a lot of potential and it's easy to manufacture simple dolls with them. However, to make a doll on the same level of Barbe requires moving parts, hair, clothes, etc. So, I don't think 3D printing is worrying Mattel yet, but maybe 3D printing will evolve to the point when a child can make a customized doll.”
