Hello everyone. This is my first post. I only recently got into using Zbrush, and I am using it exclusively for the purpose of creating models to be 3D printed. I've been having my work 3D printed for about 2 years, mostly using Shapeways to print, and Blender and Sculptris for modeling. I am finding Zbrush to be so much better for my purposes in most cases, and am glad that I such a powerful creative tool to make my art!
I just got a MakerBot Replicator this week, and after getting over the initial learning curve of the machine, I am loving the pipeline of idea to zbrush to physical model!
You can see some of my past 3D prints at my shapeways storefront, and my blog, but I don't know what the rules are on this forum in regards to posting links to a store, so I won't post the link until someone tells me that it is OK to do that.
Here is one of the first things I've used both Zbrush and the Makerbot for:
This is from a scan of my own head that I had done at Maker Faire. It was a fairly low rez scan and had a lot of cleaning up of stray polygons, so even though I didn't sculpt it completely from scratch, I have added a lot of detail in the ears, eyes, hair, and mouth. It's about 1.6 inches tall. I am very happy with the detail in a print that small from a home 3D printer!
Here is a model I sculpted from scratch and had Shapeways print it for me in silver as well as larger (4.5 inch) in plastic as a jewelry holder. It's based on a character I drew and is more along the lines of what I plan to keep making. I mostly make jewelry, toys, housewares and a few small inventions.
If any of you are interested in me posting more 3D prints here as I make them, just let me know. I hope to be making a lot more now that I can go from idea to print in as little as a few hours to a few days depending on the complexity of sculpting and how large the print is.
Lincoln