EA and a company called Z Corporation have partnered to offer basically the same service that former Microsoft Games Vice President Ed Fries offers with his company FigurePrints for World of WarCraft: 3D figurines of your unique Spore creatures.

"A ZPrinted Spore Sculpture will immortalize a Spore creature at any given time, or several selected times to document its evolution," said John M. Kawola, Z Corporation CEO. "There's a staggeringly large universe of 40 million potential creations that can cross into the physical world." -- we have no idea who gave him that number, but it seems rather low considering what you can do with the Spore creature editor.

The models will be up to 4 inches tall and cost about 49,50 USD each. From within the game, the player creates his or her own customized creature. Then, he uploads the creature file to ZPrint and provides shipping information. Now, a 3D printer using powder-binder technology creates parts directly from the data provided. First, a thin layer of powder is spread. Second, an ink-jet print head prints a binder in the cross-section of the part being created, mixing color as it does. Next, a build piston drops down, making room for the next layer, and the process is repeated again and again. After printing, the Spore Sculpture is cleaned off, given a quick dip in a resin bath, packaged and shipped.

Compared to FigurePrint's approach, there seems to be no manual coloring involed. The service for sculpturing your Spore creature can be accessed over the link www.sporesculptor.com.