About Zellerfeld
Zellerfeld was founded in 2015, with locations in both Germany and the United States. Zellerfeld’s 3D-printed footwear has the potential to revolutionize the traditional practices of footwear manufacture, and more broadly consumer goods. The company currently enables footwear designers and brands to release new designs at unprecedented speed. Zellerfeld shoes are printed-to-order, monomaterial, fully recyclable, and with no stitches, gluing, or human construction required.
The Zellerfeld discord community is a great place for those interested in learning how to create for this particular method of manufacture, supported by Zellerfeld themselves as well as numerous designers who have gone through the process first hand. They provide lasts and parameters that designers need to use in order for their design to be suitable for their technology: foot entrance, collar, thickness, and water tightness are just some of the things that need to be considered.
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Khamis Studio – Ero
Sketch > Gravity Sketch > Substance Painter > Blender
When designing Ero, Joey started off with some loose sketches to capture the gesture of the form. Next the sketches were brought into Gravity Sketch to translate the sketch to a wearable design, and the SubD tool was used to surface the model. From there the model was brought into Substance Painter and Blender to make final tweaks and sculpt the outsole tread texture.
Ero is available to purchase now on the Zellerfeld store
About Joey Khamis
Joey Khamis is an independent footwear designer and founder of Khamis Studio based in Indianapolis. His approach to design is embracing the relationship between nature and technology while using innovative mediums to create.
Jaren Dorman – Magma
Gravity Sketch > Zbrush
Jaren’s workflow started with a simple side view sketch and an idea to create a versatile shoe that could be stylish but also work well on a hike. After the sketch, Jaren modeled the wireframe of the shoe around the last in Gravity Sketch. The surfacing was made and refined in Gravity Sketch with final textural touches in Zbrush. After approval from Zellerfeld, the design was green lit and went ahead into production!
Magma is available now on the Zellerfeld store
About Jaren Dorman
Jaren Dorman is an industrial designer with a passion for innovation and evolving the status quo in how designers design. He loves educating others on how they can unlock their creative potential through new tools or ways of thinking. As a full-time employee at Gravity Sketch, Jaren helps tell stories to the global community on how to use the tool to explode their communication and design thinking with the tool. As an independent designer on the Zellerfeld platform, he believes in their mission in changing the status quo in the footwear manufacturing pipeline removing child labor, creating a sustainable shoe cycle, custom fit innovation and empowering designers to release their own work and bring it into the world through 3D printing like never before. He believes the marriage between Gravity Sketch and Zellerfeld is the perfect example of two entities radically innovating on the design and production process creating a vibrant future for the world and those who create in it.
Spore – Paca
The workflow for this design started by researching various traditional skate shoe silhouettes and functional solutions to translate into Zellerfeld’s technology. After creating orthographics in 2D, sculpting began in Gravity Sketch. The original design didn’t work due to the set Zellerfeld constraints, so a pivot on the final design direction was needed. The thickness and overhangs were adjusted in Gravity Sketch through rounds of feedback with the Zellerfeld team to make the model production ready. Finally, the sample pair was wear-tested and updated to be more functional for release.
About Jack Winkler
Jack is currently a student at SCAD in Savannah, GA earning his BFA in Accessory Design. He’s a highly creative and driven designer with the goal of gaining experience and launching his career in the footwear design field.
Thomas Humphrey
Gravity Sketch > Blender
Thomas’ current workflow for this model was using Gravity Sketch to do most of the design work and 3D modeling. Afterwards, he took the shoes into blender to fix and refine all the overhangs and wall thickness issues, as well as fixing the collar of the shoe so that it’s comfortable to wear. The file was then exported and submitted to Zellerfeld.
You can see the full detail of Thomas’ approach to designing for Zellerfeld in Gravity Sketch in his Youtube series.
About Thomas Humphrey
Thomas is a 3D footwear modeler / designer from the UK. He’s designed a large range of 3D shoes from EVA to 3D printed shoes with Zellerfeld.
Cullan Kerner – Studio Runners
Studio runners were designed entirely inside of Gravity Sketch; the Stroke tool was used to meticulously sculpt each contour.
About Cullan Kerner
Founder of studio: a pioneering VR + 3D printing design practice, an industrial designer by trade, and power user of Gravity Sketch — based in Richmond, Virginia USA
Fabrizio De Lucia
This work in progress shoe is dedicated to the Orion constellation. On the outsole, there’s a sine-wave simulation of the actual Orion’s stars luminosity and position. For the upper, three elements are combined flowing into the space-time continuum, just like stars.
The workflow starts in Gravity Sketch to form the base geometry before being imported into Blender for refinement.
About Fabrizio De Lucia
Fabrizio is a design engineer who approaches footwear design directly with Gravity Sketch, without any sketching in 2D; He describes being able to feel the depth and natural scale while modeling as a game changer. He bought his first VR headset in 2018, while developing his Master’s thesis in Design & Engineering with an electric vehicle for urban mobility.
Autrion – Infinity
Procreate > Gravity Sketch > Blender
Sketching for this design began in Procreate, and then imported as an image into Gravity Sketch. The idea is then sketched in 3D around the last using the stroke tool. This basically creates a framework of the design. The measurement tool was used to make sure everything was correct against Zellerfeld specification. Then surfaced modeled the shoe using SubD. Exported it as low-poly to Blender for finally editing and getting it ready for printing.
Autrion Infinity is available to buy now on the Zellerfeld site
About Kyle Benton
Kyle is a shoe designer, located on the East Coast US. He went to school for industrial design and particularly fell in love with sneaker design. Now he specializes in 3D printing footwear, innovation and modeling.
Bobby Nangla
This shoe was entirely designed and modeled in Gravity Sketch. Bobby started by importing the Zellerfeld last and sketching over it. The process was very organic, not knowing what exactly was going to be created, but starting simply by drawing random sketch lines using the ink tool which snowballed into the final design. Once the wireframe was complete, he started the 3D model of the shoe using the ribbon tool to create a low poly surface that the show could be modeled with. Once the low poly shoe was created, he started to create the curves which lead to the final design direction. As the shoe design is quite simple and focuses on the silhouette, the design to 3D model only took a few hours to complete.
About Bobby Nangla
Bobby is a footwear designer that fuses technology with fashion. He draws a lot of inspiration from “dystopian future”, which is used to project a future reality. This allows him to create from a space that is more avant-garde.
