Making the 3D model of Tim Dowling, the model husband

In the production of a 3D scale figurine, not much input is required from the subject. I arrived at iMakr having received no artistic direction beyond a request to keep my hands out of my pockets and the suggestion that I should look a bit 'rueful'. No problem: I always look a bit rueful. There is never nothing to be sorry about.
Once you’ve got the look down, all you have to do is walk into an octagonal chamber, with cameras and all sides, stand on the stripy rug and keep still. Step 1 lasts as long as it take for a shutter to open and close.
Step 2, however, takes many hours: a 3D printer builds up the model layer by layer, colour and all, until you’re left with a rueful little voodoo doll. Pins not included. Photograph: Linda Nylind/Guardian

iMakr project manager, Daniel Petrov, shuts me inside the 360 degree photo booth. Photograph: Linda Nylind/Guardian

It’s always disconcerting to see how eerily compliant I become in the company of photographers. I’m the same with dentists. “Which lens should I look into?” I said. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. Of course it doesn’t. Photograph: Linda Nylind/Guardian

Daniel and I check the images to make sure I look equally rueful from all sides. Photograph: Linda Nylind/Guardian

Tim Dowling being scanned for a 3D model being made of him at iMakr in Clerkenwell, with help from project manager, Daniel Petrov Photograph: Linda Nylind/Guardian

Photograph: Karen Robinson/Guardian

Each layer of the model is accompanied by a sedimentary deposit of powder, which supports the figurine as it sets. Then the little man is excavated and dusted down. Photograph: Karen Robinson/Guardian

Photograph: Karen Robinson/Guardian

Photograph: Karen Robinson/Guardian

Photograph: Karen Robinson/Guardian

Photograph: Karen Robinson/Guardian

Photograph: Karen Robinson/Guardian

Photograph: Karen Robinson/Guardian

The feet are artfully splayed so the model will stand upright without a base: my idea. Photograph: Karen Robinson/Guardian