I had the pleasure of checking out the Shapify My Life booth at Rose City Comic Con recently. Shapify My Life does a full body scan from which you can get several sizes of 3D prints done.
The Shapify Booth, developed by Artec 3D, manufacturer of professional 3D software and portable 3D scanners, features a giant 3D scanner that can scan up to four people at a time. It’s pretty easy and straightforward. Participants stand on the platform and stay as still as possible for 12 seconds. Yep, 12 seconds is all it takes to do a complete full body scan. So how accurate are the scans?
On Saturday, I wore Ashitaka. You can see a side-by-side comparison of my cosplay and the scan.
And on Sunday, I wore Keith and here are the side-by-sides again. I can’t believe the detail the scans get. Reminder: suck it in for the 12 seconds you’re being scanned!
Once the scanning is complete and processed, you can order prints or even just get the .OBJ file if you want to do your own thing with it. The prints start at $69 for a 3.0″ print and go up to $189 for a 7.5″ print for a single person. The price increases as you add more people (obviously more people requires more materials), but you can also get a volume discount for ordering multiples. So if you have a group, getting scanned together and getting multiple copies of the same print is the most cost-effective route.
You may be thinking that it sounds pricey for a 3D print, but this isn’t a 3D print you’d get from a standard 3D printer. This is a totally different material that is full color and, thanks to the powerful high-resolution scans, has some crazy fidelity to it.
Not only is every fold and prop of my cosplay captured, but you can even see the swirly detail and thin rope around my crystal dagger. These tiny details are captured perfectly even on a 4.5″ print. When I first took a picture of my print and posted it online, people thought I photoshopped myself onto my cutting mat as a joke. That’s how closely the print captures reality. Obviously with a print, looking extremely close up reveals minor imperfections, but the fact that it captured the thinness of my partially drawn sword blade should be plenty of proof that these are of exceptional quality.
Brad from BH Cosplay got his sons printed as well in their Destiny armor. Again, so much detail was captured and visible in the final rendering.
At a previous convention, he also got himself scanned in his Jayne Cobb-Gears of War armor. So cool!
The final verdict? If you have the disposable income, and especially if you’re a cosplayer, I think Shapify My Life is an amazing way to immortalize that costume you worked so hard on. Shapify My Life will next be at Emerald City Comicon (March 2-5, 2017 in Seattle). Don’t miss your opportunity to get scanned. I know I’m going to be paying them another visit and hopefully getting a scan and print of my Kanan cosplay (it’s currently a work in progress–coming soon!)
