Have you always wanted to try your hand at some simple ceramics, but didn’t want to buy a pottery wheel? And you didn’t want to go share a station with 20 screaming kids at the local pottery workshop? Now you can create beautiful, perfectly crafted ceramic pieces — without even getting your hands dirty.

3D printing service Sculpteo has launched 3D printing in ceramic in eight beautiful colors. All the colors are vivid, and your objects will come out smooth and shiny. And unlike the uneven results you’ll get spinning a pottery wheel for the first time, you can make perfectly symmetrical (if that’s what you want) items, or perhaps pieces an amateur pottery hobbyist could not even create traditionally. Regardless of what you want to create, it will come out exactly as you designed it in your 3D modeling program. For those of us who are not very good with our hands, artistically, yet can create a mean model on a computer, this is great news — we’ve got one more way to create something tangible, something we can hold in our hands, show to our friends, place on the living room table.

And like traditional ceramic, it is heat and water resistant. That means that you will be able to make all the traditional items that people love to make with ceramics: vases, mugs, dinner plates, ashtrays…does anyone make ashtrays anymore?

For those of you already doing some 3D printing with materials such as ABS, know that you won’t be able to render some very small details you are used to with ceramics. So make simple, not complex pieces. The minimum thickness is 3mm (0.118 inch) for an overall size under 200mm (7.8 inch) and it’s 4mm (0.15 inch) if the object is under 300mm (11.8 inch). Maximum size (X + Y + Z) is 400 mm.

8 colors are available:

• White Glossy
• Oyster Blue
• Tangerine Orange
• Turquoise
• Aquarius Blue
• Satin Black
• Anis Green
• Lemon Yellow

3D printing continues to bring us more ways to make things, without getting our hands dirty.

Source: Sculpteo blog