The idea of 3D printed shoes is definitely not a concept for the future, but for the present. As we’re seeing increasingly, 3D printed shoes can actually be stylish and extremely wearable. However, I don’t think this 3D printed replica of the Yeezy Boost 350 shoe, by New York-based multimedia artist Shane Griffin, fits that last point…I don’t know anyone who could fit their foot into this distorted sculpture, cool as it may appear!
The original Yeezy Boost 350 shoe is the second collaborative effort between musician Kanye West and Adidas (which is no stranger to 3D printed footwear), and the sculpture itself is severed into three separate tiers and 3D printed on white PolyJet resin. This mind-bending, life-size sculptural shoe creates the optical illusion of virtual manipulation.
The 6 x 6.7 x 10 inch sculpture, in spite of having three separate and severed sections, manages to stand upright in an actual 1:1 scale of the original sneaker. Griffin started the project by first 3D scanning an actual Yeezy Boost 350 shoe, through the process of photogrammetry. The technique involves taking measurements from photographs, and then recovering the exact positions of various surface points across the original object; in this case, the Yeezy Boost 350 sneaker.
He then distorted the model digitally, twisting and deforming the middle section of the shoe until he was able to attain the proper balance of weight distribution between all three separate parts. Finding the correct balance between the parts was a bit tricky, as he had to make some educated guesses and rigid body simulations. He finally 3D printed the final shoe sculpture, using a white resin material.
“A 360 of the sculpture creates an optical illusion of digital glitch distortion, sculpted in an analog form,” the artist describes the work.
The finished product is a really interesting and eye-catching sculptural art piece. The “Yeezy Boost Glitch Sculpture” was recently presented to the public eye at the Sunday Afternoon showcase in Tribeca, New York. It’s definitely not Griffin’s first time presenting in the showcase; in fact, he is a founding partner of the Sunday Afternoon Creative Studio & Artist Representative Agency.
Artist Shane Griffin
The Irish-born artist works in all fields of the visual arts, including design, illustration, and even film directing. He was named an ADC Young Gun in 2012, and was listed in Print Magazine’s “New Visual Artists 15 Under 30” article in 2015. It’s also not his first project with the Yeezy sneaker. In 2014, Griffin was commissioned by Nike to create the environmental and textual elements for the Yeezy II shoes. The all-red colorway shoes were designed by Kanye West and named, appropriately, ‘The Red Octobers.’ Though the actual shoe was released for global sale in June of that same year, the special Red Octobers were promoted, and sold out in less than 15 minutes, several months earlier.
Interested in having the mind-boggling Yeezy shoe sculpture join your household art collection? You can purchase one of the seven signed and numbered editions for $5,350! If you’d rather have the original, and actually wearable, Yeezy Boost 350 sneaker, you can buy it on Amazon, costing anywhere from about $1,500 to over $3,500. Discuss in the Yeezy Boost forum at 3DPB.com.
