Wood Lorin - Final

 My line-up, and evolution, of the Deacon, sculpt

mold

serial slice

pepakura

Wood Lorin - Week 16 Project: Pepakura

Taking the digital model and thoroughly distorting it in Rhino for the sake of visual interest. I stretched out the neck, elongated the base and head, and gave a slight tilt. The final cardboard output was measured to be nearly four feet.

Rhino exaggeration and distortion

The final build to be sealed and painted

This process was actually the most challenging, ironically. The process is very much like building a puzzle. Once the layout was completed in the Pepakura software, the time-consuming challenge came about bending and twisting the cardboard cutouts into unnatural contortions (many times pulling the glued sections apart. Regardless, the final result is very imposing and was thoroughly gratifying.

Wood Lorin - Week 15 Project: Serial Slicing

The second iteration of the deacon sculpt is serial slicing in cardboard and upscaling the model to around 16 inches.

Once the understructure was completed it was taped up and then mummified in a coating of plaster and gesso, respectively, in preparation for the final painting and detailing.

3D scans in Polycam and renders in Marmoset Toolbag

The final result was unintentionally influenced by Star Trek: First Contact which was playing in the background. The Borg subconsciously influenced the final detailing of sculpt.

The external mechanics and textures were a patchwork of various tubes and hoses and a generous amount of spare electronic wires and cables gathering dust at home.

Final sculpt

Erik DeFries: Week 16B - Final Polygonal Sculpt

 The final sculpture:

Erik DeFries: Week 16A - Polygonal Sculpt

After using my Alien head for the serial slicing, I opted to use my Torso piece for the polygonal sculpt: for balance and whatnot.The turnaround time on this piece was... intense, to say the least. I arrived back in Dallas at midnight on Monday, November 28th (home for the first time since the 14th) and was originally intended to present the finished sculpture that very same day. Looking back, I still don't know how I would have managed the logistics differently: I don't think this sculpture would have fit back into my carry-on luggage anyway, even if I had found a laser-cutter or machine shop open in the quiet mountain town of Estes Park, Colorado.

C'est la vie.

Safely home, I set to work.

 

 

Due to the cardboard thickness, the individual fingers were a pain. Serves me right for choosing such an ambitiously intricate sculpture for my very first attempt at this process, I suppose. After much bending and folding, the hand came together.

 

 

 

Ain't she a beauty? Two thick coats of white enamel, to really seal in the flavor.

 

 

 

Painting and taping the base mesh.( The colors look a lot more blended in person: the photo doesn't do it justice, unfortunately. A gradient from red, to yellow, to blue.) 

 

Originally, I was planning on painting the hand gold, but then I got a wild idea in the eleventh hour: Melting crayons down the hand for a nice technicolor dessert! I got a box of crayons and a hair dryer for heat.

Problem: How do I attach the crayons to the hand in order to melt them?

(Failed) Solution 1: Masking tape... There aren't many materials that smooth, waxy crayons will stick to without help:

 

 

(Successful) Solution 2: Superglue, and pressing really, REALLY hard.

 

 

 

Before I fired up the hair dryer to melt them, I set one rule for myself: let it be organic. Wherever the wax drips, the wax stays. If it spatters all over the rest of the sculpture, if it pools in the crook of the elbow, if it turns the entire piece into some Jackson Pollock, Unicorn-massacre hybrid, so be it.

 

In the end, some of the spatter hit other parts of the torso, but most of the multi-chromatic chaos was contained to the hand.

Erik DeFries: Week 12 - Serial Slicing and Rigid Shell Construction

 

After finally getting my Rhino 3D license sorted out, I was able to perform the serial slicing and rigid shell construction for my alien head model. The paint job was an experimental risk: I had never painted a fluorescent sculpture intended for blacklight viewing before. I wouldn't know until weeks later what the intended result would actually look like when viewed properly.

 

Admittedly, I am quite pleased with the result of the black-light test, shown below: perhaps this alien species is capable of bio-luminescence in such a manner. As another development in the lore for this creature, I've chosen to have it communicate through telepathy rather than auditory vocalization. As such, a vestigial protrusion exists where the creature's mouth might have been millions of years ago, before evolution made no longer necessary. You might ask, then, "how does this creature eat without a mouth?" My answer? "You don't want to know."

 

Grace Denner: Week 15 Pepakura

Grace Denner: Week 8 Tree Stump 

The Model: 

I took the original tree stump mimic model into Rhino for this final composition and stretched and twisted it. I lowered the polygon count to give it a geometric look. I put movement into the piece by pushing the tree's shape, almost turning it as if it were looking over its shoulder. Once completed, I took it into Pepakura and, using the program there, "cut" the tree into origami-like pieces. Then, I arranged them into more 24"x48" rectangles to be laser cut onto the same-sized cardboard.

 

Assembly:

 

The assembly process was quite simple. The numbered sides correlated with each seam that needed to be attached. Using more Loctite Super Glue, I followed the guideline as one would do with origami. While the glue dried, I used masking tape to cover every seam on the tree. I ultimately ended up with a polygonal cardboard tree that stood over three feet tall.

 The Composition:

 

The goal for this final composition was to bring more life to the tree stump mimic while reducing its lifelessness through the lower polygon count. By turning it and forcing it to look over its shoulder, the tree becomes more human, adding to the mimic quality of the original design. The tree has to look over its shoulder implies it is aware of some unseen danger; perhaps the thing that cut the tree down initially has come back to finish the job.

Erik DeFries: Week 8 - Midterm Presentation of Casts

 

 

 

I'm quite pleased with how my casts turned out for both the Alien and the Torso. I also incorporated the 3d prints of the torso into the series, totaling five iterations. No two are the same, nor do any have the same arm as another. The polygonal torso glitched while printing, but I liked the way the error looked, so I incorporated it into the design, re-affixing strands of filament to the underside of the fallen arm.

The alien head, being a smoother and therefore shinier all-black surface, proved decidedly difficult to photograph. For each alien cast, I filled less and less of the mould, and incorporated this approach into the final sequence, by having the head "melt" over time ("reading" the sculpture as a progression from left to right.)

 

Project 2 cardboard-based upscaling with serial slicing then pepakura

 The serial slicing started with having to remove the base and include 2 holes for pipes to keep the sculpture aligned as the slices are built, one upon the other upon the other. This required the use of grasshopper scripts and a more advanced understanding of what more rhino was capable of executing. 

Getting the slices and putting them together on the dowels was incredibly fun, a really zen process. Afterwards we covered it with the 2 part epoxy as well as the black gesso to finish. 

Afterwards I began to cover the piece in trash after drilling in some rebar and twisting wires around it, creating a separate branch. I had found a branch that fit the general size I was looking for and pushed in some aluminum foil in its cracks. this was then adhered to the opposite side of the wire-made branch. After painting the eye and coating it in xtc 3d I began laying bark upon the sculpture. The monster would use dying organing matter such as bark to make it seem like a natural creature, therefore I thought using real materials would further that message and notion. 

I wish to revise this project because the bark did not work as well as I otherwise would have wanted. 

                                

Above: Tennis ball covered in plaster sheet to create the floating eye
Below: foam used to create the irises for the eyes (EVA foam)

                                             

The next and final project was the pepakura processing, I separated everything I needed to, as the mesh for the eye was stuck within the mesh of the stump. I did a Boolean difference and kept both pieces as separate pieces. We lowered the poly count, did a cage edit and scaled the piece up yet again to around 4 feet in height. The cage edit twisted the piece a little clockwise. 

The smaller pieces on the 3rd sheet are the parts that fold up to make the eye. When all of the cardboard came in, Andrew Bittner messaged me for pick up and Once I got the pieces I realized I made the slats extremely small, which was very troubling and made the piece incredibly difficult to hold together without getting much glue on my fingers and damaging them. I put it together and taped everything. This tape ended up being very garish, and I plan on revising this piece as well. I've ordered the tape and will be working on it through the week. 

         

I value greatly everything I learned this semester, I will try my best to continue working in the digital fabrication space when it applies to my practice.