Kingston University Students Create Innovative 3D Pen Sculpture of a Nissan Car

Furniture and product design student Karsan Haval combined forces with interior design college students Luiza Darie Vlasceanu, Femi Adedoyin, Ruby Asare-Brown, and Yelitzelena Leonard to become part of a dedicated team that spent 800 hours creating a life-size replica complete of the Nissan Qashqai Black Edition. for the Japanese firm, which makes 58 real cars in just one hour.

This unique project was commissioned by Nissan to demonstrate the refined design of its new European crossover model. Students from the Faculty of Art, Design and Technology were called to participate and spent two weeks drawing on a stenciled car with a 3D pen, which was also used to weld the elements of the car.

“We started by drawing key areas of the car, adding contour lines to accentuate the vehicle’s profile, and covering the entire car with masking tape to fill in the gaps, creating panels,” Karsan explained. “In the early stages it was hard to imagine what the finished ‘drawing’ would look like, but once we started weaving in the contour lines to fill in the panels and connect them, it really started to take shape.”

The team used 3Doodler pens, which allow an artist to draw in mid-air, producing objects and patterns by heating solid plastic to 230 degrees Celsius and forcing it through a small nozzle as it cools.

“Once we removed the panels we had created from the duct tape, we could really appreciate the separate strands of plastic that capture the movement of the 3D pen,” said Karsan, 23. “It required a lot of patience and concentration: the finished model is made up of 13.8 kilometers of plastic strands.”

The final sculpture stretches over four meters long and nearly two meters tall, the same size as the actual vehicle, a feat that Karsan says is testament to the progression of 3D art.

“3D printing has really taken off in the last five years and will continue to grow and develop; it is now used in the medical world to help surgeons with procedures and has even been shot into space to help astronauts,” he said. “It’s changing the face of art as we know it.”