FULL-FIGURE BRONZE SCULPTURE: RALPH BAER
Life-size, full-figure bronze portrait of inventor Ralph Baer, “the Father of Video Games,” Arms Park, Manchester, New Hampshire.
Concept Realizations was contracted to produce a fabrication-ready digital design of a life-size, full-figure sculpture of inventor Ralph Baer, “the Father of Video Games,” for casting in bronze. The project required a portrait likeness of Baer seated on a park bench, holding his invention, the “Brown Box”—the first video game console controller and precursor to Pong.
Concept Realizations directed the project’s digital design process, taking the client’s rough concept through to production of full-scale, 3D print-ready models.
Baer’s likeness, pose, clothes, and invention were digitally sculpted from photo references. The completed figure was digitally sectioned into interlocking, castable-sized parts with optimal joint placements, wall-thicknesses, investment windows, and sprues incorporated directly into the digital design.
The digital model was then 3D printed in multiple sections in a clean-burning, wax-like 3D print media. These 3D prints were then used in place of wax in a conventional lost-wax casting process.
Concept Realizations’ digital-to-bronze workflow allowed the client to skip the expensive production of physical maquettes and enlargements, and allowed the foundry to bypass the costly and time-consuming mold-making and wax-casting processes. This approach allowed this sculpture to be produced much faster and less expensively than would have been possible with a traditional workflow.
The finished sculpture was unveiled on May 10, 2019 in Arms Park, in Baer’s hometown of Manchester, New Hampshire. It is meant to invite interaction, with visitors sitting next to Baer, taking photos.
