Ivy Donnette: Pepakura Model

I created a new model that would make more sense in a large size for this project. During my undergrad I created a 2" copper hollow-form dice with screws as the pips which was the starting place for this dice. I chose to build off the idea of a dice because of their inherent tactile quality and I wanted to play on that by enlarging it exponentially. 

The new model gave me a bit of a hard time when I uploaded it to Papakura due to the way I constructed the model. After several frustrating tries to make the model unfold in a way that made sense, I decided to separate out each mesh instead of trying to unfold the object as a whole. This change also made construction pretty simple.    

Because a dice is something people want to pick up and roll, I wanted to play on that by adding a rough texture to the dice’s exterior. I thought about using sand paper but felt that there was a better option. I decided on coarse sand that would then be painted. Amanda suggested mixing sand with glue as a way to adhere sand to the cardboard but I was concerned that the glue would prevent the texture of the sand from being as rough as I want it so I decided to brush glue onto the box then sprinkle the coarse sand onto the glue.

The sand also allowed the tape and seams fade away. I didn't want it to look like separate objects taped together. After the dice was covered in the sand, I spray painted it gold. The gold paint creates a feeling of importance and value even though it’s just cardboard. The phrase I thought of as I covered the dice in gold was “false decadence”.    

Paint and sand has chipped off as I transported it to campus and as I struggled to wrangle the dice out of my car. I wanted the dice to be perfectly covered but realized that the mangled and chipped edges added to the reality of the false decadence.    

Ivy Donnette: Serial Sliced Model

I decided that I didn’t want to paint my serial sliced deck of cards to look like a literal deck of cards. That would have been boring. Actually, I didn’t want to paint it at all. I wanted to cover my model in something that would add interest and texture. Fortunately, my first idea failed before I even put it on my model. Because it failed, I decided to give painting a try. The method of painting I chose is a form of printmaking where you paint on a substrate then press the substrate onto the object you want the print to be on. I haphazardly drizzled and blobbed paint onto a tin foil covered baking sheet then put marbles into the paint and randomly rolled the marbles around. The marbles mixed and swirled the paint in a completely random way.

Next, I lifted the foil off the baking sheet and pressed it onto one side of my model.

Ivy Donnette: Week 8 Cards

I used Mudbox to sculpt the original object, a deck of cards. I went through about four different iterations of the deck before I figured out how to actually make a rectangular prism without having to smash and sculpt the cube into a rectangle. Each detail is a separate rectangle that I manipulated into the shapes I needed them to be.

For the relief, imported the Mudbox cards into Maya so I could cut the object and intersect it with the backing. I chose to do a poker chip because it fits with playing cards and I didn’t want a plain backing. The poker chip took many different tries. Like the cards, I didn’t know how to make the shapes do what I needed them to do. Finally, I applied the method of the Boolean-difference action to the indentions of the poker chip.

 

 I coated the models in XTC-3D. Then I made the silicon mold. I used clay to create a box around the cards. I tried to make the walls as thin as I could without making them too thin. I wanted to reduce the amount of silicon needed.

Next I created the brush-on mold. This was a little trickier because of the angle of the cards sticking up off the chip. I had to make sure to fill in all the negative space so the mother mold wouldn’t get stuck.

I began experimenting with glitter as well as putting different things in the clear urethane plastic.

For the final product I chose to put matches into the plastic for the full object and I put wooden sticks into the relief. For the relief I wanted to create the look of fire. I swirled orange pigment into the clear plastic and poured that into the mold. After I let it cure for a bit, I mixed more clear plastic and added in a swirl of the black pigment and poured that into the chip section of the mold.

For my other set of objects I used cement. I chose not to paint the cement because I wanted to leave it natural.