Episode 59: Perspectives on Digital Sculpting vs. Toothpick & Putty

With our last episode recapping MFCA 2025, your hosts—with help
from Lou Masses and Dennis Levy—kicked up a bit of a hornet’s
nest by addressing a major recurring topic of discussion at the
show and in our small section of the miniatures world in general:
Should digital sculpting and 3D printing be judged differently
than the “handmade/toothpick and putty” sculpts that have
predominated in this odd art form of ours for the last five and a
half decades?


Okay, it was mainly Jim doing the kicking. But since he was in
part recounting a long and thoughtful conversation in
Pennsylvania with master-sculptor Alan Ball, first featured with
his master-painter wife Marion on Episode 20 of our podcast, we
invited Alan to come back to have the discussion in real
time—“for the record,” so to speak, and sans paraphrasing. As
always, he graciously and eloquently shared his thoughts and
insights as one of the deepest thinkers about this passion we
share.


Now, when anyone talks about digital sculpting in the historical
as opposed to the fantasy category of miniature figures today,
the name Nello Rivieccio inevitably comes up. Based near Naples,
he is as much of a master on Zbrush as he was for many years with
a toothpick (or similar tool) and two-part epoxy putty.


To be clear, we do not intend these dual chats as a Pro/Con,
Point/Counterpoint pairing: Alan and Nello have as many areas of
agreement with each other (and with your hosts) as they do
differences. But since the conversation about the advent of
digital sculpting is certain to be a major topic of conversation
again at World Model Expo, we wanted to drop this epic episode
with both of them at the same time, so folks can have their
perspectives (and our own) in mind as they view the work on
display in Versailles from July 4 to 6.