Skip to main content

Katy Perry brings 3D Printing to the Stage in her Prismatic World Tour

Image
By
Opening scene of the Prismatic World Tour featuring Katy Perry and backing dancers wearing Stratasys 3D Printed mohawks, Photo by Jason Williamson
Opening scene of the Prismatic World Tour featuring
Katy Perry and backing dancers wearing Stratasys 3D
Printed mohawks, Photo by Jason Williamson



Stratasys technology is illuminating the stage in the opening song of US pop star Katy Perry’s “Prismatic” World Tour, with vibrantly colored 3D printed mohawks produced by leading Hollywood special effects company, Legacy Effects.

Inspired by the plume of an ancient Roman’s imperial-centurion helmet, the mohawk’s main structure is manufactured using Stratasys 3D printing and features captivating, colorful programmed lighting in the plume. With the prominent theme of color running throughout the tour, the headpiece wows audiences with a spectrum of bright lights, igniting an explosion of spectacular fireworks in the opening song.

The final end-use Stratasys 3D Printed mohawk for the Katy Perry Tour
The final end-use Stratasys 3D Printed mohawk for the Katy Perry Tour
Set to feature throughout the year-long world tour, each Mohawk is personalized to perfectly fit the individual backing dancer, ensuring that they remain in place throughout the megahit opening song, “Roar.”
“When Katy Perry’s art assistant gave us the brief with such a short turnaround time, we knew instantly that creating something so complex and visually striking, with the need for durability, could only be achieved with 3D printing,” said Jason Lopes, Lead Systems Engineer at Legacy Effects. “Traditionally, it’s virtually impossible and very costly to produce such complex personalized pieces by hand, taking into consideration the time to work out the programming of the lighting elements. With Stratasys 3D printing technology, we were able to develop fully-illuminated pieces with a lightning fast turnaround of under a week. For developing one-off props for the music industry, this is revolutionary.”

The best of both – combining FDM and PolyJet 3D Printing

Given the need of the eye-catching headgear to withstand continual use throughout the world tour, Legacy Effects opted to 3D print the outer crest in robust ABS-M30 FDM thermoplastic, ideal for holding the whole unit together. Similarly, thanks to its high dimensional stability and fine detail visualisation, the inset of the mohawks was produced in Stratasys’ VeroGray material.

“We wanted to amplify the bright colors of the mohawks to complement the dance routine and lighting throughout the performance and we knew that PolyJet’s ability to house a sheet of acrylic inside would ensure that the contrast in colors was emphasized regardless of the spectators’ position in the arena,” Lopes said.

“This is hugely exciting for us as Katy is such a high profile client, but it also represents how 3D printing is enabling us to meet the complex demands of projects like these immediately and providing our clients results within a day,” Lopes said. “To see 3D printed end-use parts in action during a live concert performance is something else!”

Gilad Gans, President, Stratasys North America, concludes: “We are seeing more and more of our customers using 3D printing beyond just a prototyping tool, but as a way to directly manufacture some of the most complex parts as final products. In the case of Katy Perry’s head pieces, the ability to 3D print personalized one-off parts, customized to each dancer, is a perfect example of how the future of manufacturing is moving towards mass customization.”



Popular posts from this blog

Delivering High Quantities of Prototypes Fast

By
Objective3D Direct Manufacturing produces parts using a range of additive and conventional manufacturing technologies. We offer tailored solutions for your project’s needs. If your project requires larger quantities of small parts – fast, Laser Sintering is the best technological solution for you. Per-part pricing is reduced as quantities increase, but there are more advantages to using Laser Sintering for small prototypes than price alone. Laser Sintering (LS) provides strong, versatile and geometrically intricate components made from filled and un-filled nylon materials that are ideal for fit and form verification and functional testing. Prototypes made with LS are created quickly and offer robust solutions for your project. FAST Delivery Laser Sintering can provide sturdy, functional prototypes as little as 24 hours. Multi-component designs can be incorporated into single structures, allowing engineers to produce complex features and geometries in one print, and elim
Read more

How Artec Space Spider helps measure the shape-shifting of birds in response to climate change.

By
Challenge:  In the past century, researchers have been studying a variety of birds in Australia to see how their bodies have changed as a result of global warming in order to determine how to adjust. In order to document the exact dimensions of thousands of beaks of 86 different species of birds in museums in a fast, accurate, and convenient manner, they needed a fast, accurate, and convenient method. Solution: Artec Space Spider, Artec Studio Results: By using the handheld 3D scanner Artec Space Spider, each bird can be scanned in submillimeter colour 3D in approximately two minutes. This makes it easy to scan anywhere from 30-50 birds in one museum visit. Scan processing takes just under six minutes for each bird. PhD candidate Sara Ryding 3D scanning an Australian galah (Eolophus roseicapilla) with Artec Space Spider (image credit: Sara Ryding) One of the most startling impacts of global warming has taken place for decades now: multiple species of birds around the world have been
Read more

3D scanning and reverse engineering streamline original furniture design and production

By
MU Form Furniture Design is an Oakland-based company that designs, manufactures and distributes furniture products for the modern home and business. The company is never short of orders since good and original design is sought after by architects and interior designers. The main material MU Form works with is high-quality bent ply, which is one of the most widely used materials in this industry due to its ability to create a variety of shapes for chairs, stools, and tables. The company’s specialists seek to create great designs that pose a challenge for other manufacturers to copy or replicate. The V Dining Chair in red and grey, designed by MU Form’s Po Shun Leong. “Our designers are tasked to develop furniture designs that require a significant amount of trial and error by developing physical prototypes of chairs and stools,” says Mark Leong, CEO of MU Form. To produce a new original piece of furniture, MU Form would normally ship a physical prototype model to a factory
Read more