Michelle Sleeper Creates 'Gaming, Comics, and Pop Culture Based Props'

If you go to a sci-fi or gaming convention you'll see people in exotic "character" costumes, often holding exotic props, with some of the most popular being futuristic firearm mockups of one sort or another. Who makes all these cool fannish items? A whole bunch of artists and artisans, including Michelle Sleeper (who says she got tired of jokes about her name many years ago). She's not only one of these artisans, but is also a committed 3-D printer user, since 3-D printing is how she forms a high percentage of her props (with the word "props" being used here in the theatrical rather than the nautical sense). To keep up with what Michelle is making, you should check her blog. One of her most interesting posts, titled Atlanta Mini Maker Faire: On missing deadlines, failure, and triage, is about preparing for the event where Timothy Lord met and interviewed Michelle.

Even if gamer gatherings and SF conventions aren't your thing, the interview (along with the links above) gives a nice glimpse into the life of an independent artisan who uses technology to create a lot of her art. (Alternate Video Link)

Comments

Re:How is a fluff piece actual news?

[turp182]

Check out the blog, she usually constructs 3D models manually herself from lower quality images/models.

And the first blog example where she used an existing model, Fallout 3's Pip-Boy 3000, she spent "about 12 hours" cleaning up the 3D printed model.

She's a crafts-person, old school style with new school tools (similar old school tools would have involved molds, similar to using an existing 3D model). Pretty cool stuff in my opinion.