My client asked for a life-sized 3D printed portrait of his colleague, venture capitalist Brad Feld. Because the portrait was to be a surprise gift to Feld, there was no opportunity to scan the subject. The piece had to be modeled from photos of him culled from the web.

I proposed a bust, roughly from the shoulders up, with classical allusions, but I was vague about the details beyond that. The final design references the Artemision Bronze, Leighton’s An Athlete Wrestling with a Python and a few other sources.

I took a risk and bet that they’d like something other than a standard chairman-of-the-board type treatment. And what’s the point of having rock & roll hair if you aren’t going to do the whole heroic barbarian-warrior-champion-god thing when you have your life-size 3D printed portrait done?

This is the result.

This kind of remixing is just one small reason the world’s back catalog of public domain sculptural artwork should be digitized and published, freely, and without restriction.

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