Well the Dragon Egg Tea cup arrived today. It is interesting to see the printed result. There was a definite loss of detail from the renders but I expected some and knew most of it would be collection sites for the glaze. There are a few bullet points for observations and suggestions:
*The only disappointment really is that when it was glazed the glaze ledge for the foot was ignored and the inside of the foot was glazed as well. Coming from a background as a potter I assumed that from the glaze ledge down there wouldn't be any glaze unless some would be used just to highlight the inscription inside the base.
*It would have been interesting to see what level of detail the printing would support if the inside of the foot was left unglazed.
*The clay body is definitely a low fire and it wasn't even fired to vitrification so the clay body doesn't ring like porcelain when struck it sounds more like a regular white clay body.
*If porcelain was chosen to support a higher level of detail than the previous clay body then I would suggest air brushing the glazes onto the pieces after brushing wax resist on the foot/base which would also prevent the residual glaze color left behind on the brighter colors. This would also improve the economy of your glaze utilization and cover more with less.
*It would be nice if there was a way of indicating what to glaze and what to leave unfinished, either through a texture file or something interactive once the model is loaded.
*I always burnished my vessel bases to prevent damage to whatever they were set upon and potentially slid across. The base of this was left with a slight grit that would mar any finished wooden surface with scratches. Something to consider for vessels that would be potentially used in this way and include it in the production process.
This has been a good experiment on a number of points mainly because it helps me understand the detail threshold which is why I layered them to see where the drop off was. It does feel really nice in the hand and I look forward to enjoying some tea with it! I welcome any ideas or further suggestions beyond the quick notes I have left. Here are the pics!