Second Thoughts, Grey Alien Statue

VISITOR 003 has been standing like that since it arrived, and nobody has been able to tell whether it is thinking or praying. The file is labelled Second Thoughts, which was meant as a joke and stopped being one about a week in.

It is the hands that do it

Fingers steepled at the mouth, elbows in, weight even on both feet. Every other alien figure you can buy is either walking, reaching or menacing somebody. This one is waiting, and waiting is far more unsettling in a room than a raised arm ever was.

Look at it from the front and it is composed. Look from the side and it is leaning in very slightly, which is where the whole thing stops being an ornament.

Anatomy that survives close inspection

The long skull with the brow ridge running back over it, the black almond eyes, the cabling of tendon down the forearms, the spread of those feet across the plinth. It is built like something that evolved somewhere, not like a costume.

It stands on its own ground

The plinth is part of the piece: a low disc with a band of glyphs cut into the rim and clamps around the edge, like a hatch that was sealed from the other side. Nobody is going to translate it. That is the point of it.

Left unpainted on purpose

Paint turns this into a toy. Bare filament keeps it looking like something photographed in a building with no name on it, and a flat surface shows the ribs and the forearms far better than a gloss coat would.

The numbers

• 300 mm tall including the plinth.
• Printed and finished by hand in Australia.
• VISITOR 003. That number belongs to this design and will never be given to another.

Looking after it

The fingers are the fragile part and there are a lot of them. Lift it by the plinth or the torso, never by the hands or the head. Dust with a soft dry brush rather than a cloth. Out of direct sun, and never a parked car in summer, because PLA softens around 60 degrees.

How it is made

Modelled from scratch, printed here on our own machines, then cleaned up, finished and packed by hand. Nothing is outsourced and nothing is cast, so every piece carries faint layer lines and no two come out quite identical. We could sand those out. We would rather you could see it was made than see it was manufactured.

PLA, which is a corn-starch derived plastic. It is rigid, it holds fine detail better than almost anything else at this price, and it has one weakness worth knowing: it softens at around 60 degrees. A sunny windowsill in February is the one place it should never live.

Ordering one now

Everything here is made to order. Nothing sits in a box waiting, which is why you are not paying for a warehouse. Order it and yours goes into the next batch, usually within a fortnight, and you are emailed when it goes on the bed and again when it ships.

Change your mind before it is printed and we refund it in full without asking why. After that you still have every right you have under Australian Consumer Law, which we cannot exclude and would not want to.