Both a tribute to ubiquitous, and lovely, hexagonal colour pencils, and a representation of what was coined by Joris Peels as 'combinatory manufacturing'.

Combine the connector piece with any set of 36 standard hexagonal pencils of about 7.0 mm cross section (measured at the smallest diameter). These types of sets are available around the world from many department stores and art supply stores - I’ve seen good sets for as little as 5 euro.

Examples of pencils that fit are Stabilo Aquacolor 1600, and Caran d’Ache Prismalo I, but there are many more. I’ve recently heard that in the US, Prismacolor Verithin Colored Pencils (available from Amazon and others) work well. Normal black pencils often have the same size and shape and can be used too.

If you are new to the Shapeways website: to order you will be asked to create an account (it's easy). Assembly may leave slight marks on pencils. For more information on this or other products, please visit www.michielcornelissen.com.

It's a cute little bird, but there's more to it. Merry Bird is an example of a product that can only be manufactured with 3d-printing technology. ?Take a close look: the bird and its hinged (!) swing are printed right inside the cage - no post-production assembly is necessary.

Originally designed as a Christmas ornament, Merry Bird looks good enough to display all year round.

Merry Bird is also available in design stores worldwide through designlabel Soonsalon; mail Sheila for information on the nearest shop to buy, and wholesale options.

This is a bottle. But not just any bottle, a special bottle. This bottle has no top or bottom, nor a front or back, nor even an inside or outside. This special bottle is called a klein bottle.

Klein bottles are non-orientable objects, meaning they have no definable sides. The outside flows to the inside and back again, making it impossible to discern between the two.

Of course, this isn't a real klein bottle. It would be physically impossible to create a real klein bottle. Like my mobius strip-based models, this is the closest possible 3-dimensional representation of the object. Still, it's mathematical and theoretical properties are evident and fascinating.

2 weeks ago i've discovered that we could export 3d models from "Spore creature creator". After a few experimentations with some silly export/import/export/import manipulations involving Spore, maya, mudbox and accutrans, i've came to a quite nice workflow to make relatively satisfying miniature 3d models very quickly ( one hour for a model ) ready for 3d print.

Don't worry if the level of details seems poor, it should ( hem, if i'm not wrong.) fit the scale and thinness of the printing material.

Dungeon Interior Design 101: more wooden crates! Sized for 1" (25mm) minis battlegrids. Approximately 1:60 scale (1 inch = 5 feet). The bottom is hollow for cheap printing (or turn it upside down for an open crate).