by CreoPop

The life of CreoPop began over a year ago as a Indiegogo project, it now however has moved up and is on Best Buy’s retail shelves where it encourages individuals to take on a single task which is three dimensional drawing.

Being able to draw in space is a one of a kind skill. Instead of placing pencil to paper and allowing for a two dimensional line flow, that line is being drawn into that third, Z-axis. This experience can be profound and at times even profoundly disturbing. A technology the is fairly rare, at least on the level of consumers, is what CreoPop uses to make it possible to draw in 3D. A photopolymer gel and a fat pen are combined by the device and it is equipped with the UV lights who as soon as the gel exits the tip of the pen, harden it. There are other 3D pens available too.

What You Get With Your Purchase

The package costs $129.99 and includes the very fat CreoPop pen, various rubber drawing tips with nozzles of different sizes, three photopolymer ink cartridges that are blue, red and orange, a USB charging cable, you are able to run it while plugged in or off a charge.  There is no need to assemble, all you do is twist open your CreoPop pen and the cartridge slot is revealed, the protective covering is then removed from the cartridge, it is inserted in the pen, the pen is then closed, a nozzle is added to the tip that is now sticking out of the business end of your pen, and you are just about set to go.

A four inch x four inch drawing pad is smartly shipped with the CreoPop, this can be placed on any surface. This little square is where you will create all of your brilliant 3D creations, it also makes moving your 3D art when you are done much easier. Although CreoPop is fat, the controls it has are few. There is the power button, close to the tip there is the operation button and the is a plunger speed setting, one light indicates low and it can go as far as five for high. Although its girth is wide, it is pleasantly light and the pen is comfortable to hold.

Bow To Start Drawing In Space

With my personal CreoPop setup, I turned my pen on, the plunger I set at one, this is the setting for beginners, and until the three blue LEDs turned on at the tip, I help the Operation button down, I could feel and hear the plunger motor working.

Some time passed and nothing came out. Then, all of a sudden, a fairly large blog of gel came squirting out of the nozzle, the tip that I selected literally got pushed off. Eventually I learned that there is a seal on new gel packs which has to be broken by the plungers pressure before any gel is able to flow out of the nozzle.

Once I cleaned up the mess, I started again. Only this time there was a steady stream of blue gel flowing from the tip. I moved along at a slower pace allowing for the gel to become instantly hardened by the blue light as I moved along. There I was, drawing in 3D space.

To be honest, it was painstakingly slow work. I later switched to a nozzle that was wider so I could quickly draw fatter lines. Cool ink drawing is what CreoPop promises, however I noticed a smoke like substance coming from the gel as it came out of the nozzle, and from my creations I couns that at least when it came to the thick lines, it felt pretty warm when I touched it.

Although fat, the CreoPop drawing pen was not uncomfortable to hold and was pretty light. After drawing a few things, I was completely out shown by a co-worker who expertly designed a tiny Christmas tree, although small, it was quite lovely.

Although the photopolymer is almost instantly hardened by the CreoPops lights, there will always be that small last bit of gel which oozes out after you have pressed the operation button to shut off the plunger and light. There is however a solution the CreoPop offers for this, to turn on only the blue light, you can double click the Operation button, this allows for any remaining soft gel to be hardened and also makes hardening and cleaning up and gel that may have been smudged around your workspace much easier.

Supply and Demand

After having poorly drawn a miniature Eiffel tower, the tree as well as tons of mistakes which ended in quite a large amount of wasted blue gel, it seemed as if the first cartridge was empty. However when I adjusted the strength of the plunger to five, the gel once again began exiting the pen.

When you are all out of photopolymer, you are able to for only $19.99, purchase another pack that contains three drawing cartridges. However to make it last, I would suggest that you practice drawing with the thinnest photopolymer line until you are good at it. By the way, you are able to switch between color cartridges at any point to design creations that are multi-colored.

The end product from drawing 3D with a CreoPop are things that are a bit wiggly looking and although hard, are not exactly tough. When I handed my Eiffel tower to someone, she immediately broke off a part of it. The creations however are still very cool looking and I could imagine that a crafty person would easily fall in love with it. It could be the ideal present for them.