Mag-Net, the 3D Designer Inspired by Pop Culture

It’s easy to download hundreds of thousands of free STL files from sites such as Thingiverse without thinking about the designers who created them. Therefore, we spoke to Mag-Net, a passionate graphic 3D designer and production manager from Ohio. This American designer has been working in 2D design since 1999! In 2007, he started working with Sketchup as a visualisation tool for larger graphic design projects. From there, he discovered 3D printing.

“When I first started designing POS displays, sports facilities and various 3D signs, I always wanted to print my models in 3D, but I still did not have access to a 3D printer. I was very excited to discover that the performance of 3D printers had increased while their price had dropped so much that I was thinking of buying one, so I realized there were so many similarities between the world of work in 2D printing and 3D printing!”

A model of Daffy Duck created by Mag-Net.

Inspiration

For inspiration, Mag-Net immerses himself in the worlds of recognised artists, and tries to reproduce their work in his own style. This brings recognised work to the world in new and effective ways.

“I’m mostly inspired by the amazing artists who have invented a whole universe. I really enjoy spending time decoding their works, looking for reference images and extrapolating a 3D image. This motivates me the most. Learning through these projects, I see that I still have a lot of techniques to learn to perfect my 3D modeling.”

3D Modeling

Regarding the 3D modeling process itself, Mag-Net uses several different programs.