Technology from the American and Israeli 3D printing company Stratasys will illuminate the stage for the opening song of US pop star Katy Perry‘s Prismatic World Tour. It will provide “vibrantly colored” 3D printed mohawks produced by what it describes as a leading Hollywood special effects company, Legacy Effects.
This may be helpful for Perry after her lackluster performance at the Super Bowl on Sunday. Pop singers like her need to use as many visual props as possible to keep an audience’s attention since their music and singing skills are usually not enough to do so.
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As with most Super Bowl’s this year’s halftime show was more about the visual effects and how good Perry looked in her weird dress than it was about the music.
Inspired by the plume of an ancient Roman’s imperial-centurion helmets, Stratasys said that the mohawk’s main structure is manufactured using its 3D printing and features captivating colorful programmed lighting in the peak. With the prominent theme of color running throughout the tour, the headpiece “wows audiences with a spectrum of bright lights, igniting an explosion of spectacular pyrotechnics in the opening song.”
Set to feature throughout the year-long world tour, the mohawks are personalized to perfectly fit the individual backing dancer, ensuring that they remain in place throughout the renowned opening song, Roar.
“When Katy Perry’s art assistant gave us the brief with such a short turnaround time, we knew instantly that creating something so complex and visually striking, with the need for durability, could only be achieved with 3D printing, ” explains Jason Lopes, Lead Systems Engineer at Legacy Effects. “Traditionally, it’s virtually impossible and very costly to produce such complex personalized pieces by hand, taking into consideration the time to work out the programming of the lighting elements. With Stratasys 3D printing technology, we were able to develop fully-illuminated pieces with a lightning fast turnaround of under a week. For developing one-off props for the music industry, this is revolutionary.”
Given the need of the eye-catching headgear to withstand continual use throughout the world tour, Legacy Effects opted to 3D print the outer crest in robust ABS-M30 FDM thermoplastic, ideal for holding the whole unit together. Similarly, thanks to its high dimensional stability and fine detail visualization, the inset of the mohawks was produced in Stratasys’ rigid VeroGray material.
