FDM Rendering and Sculpture

I found a beautiful piece of coral on Miami Beach several months ago and I have been wearing it around my neck ever since. I am completely enamored with the form so I decided to use the fused deposition modeling project to abstract and recreate the small coral piece on a slightly larger scale for the table. The FDM process is really great when I think about how it can be used for casting. I would ultimately want to cast this in both bronze and in plaster. For now, here it is painted and mounted on mahogany. I designed this piece to stand up straight and then a good friend came along and knocked it over. Best thing that ever happened to it.

This is my rendering of the Coral FDM that I printed. I placed it outside of the "The Deep"- An aquarium in Hull, East Yorkshire that was designed by Sir Terry Farrell. I couldnt decide which color I liked better so I posted both.

Laser Cut Waffle

This project was very important to me. My father died July 6, 2008 and I have been running from conceptual art ever sense. I didn't want to be the girl who "just makes art about death," and "needs to get over it." Instead, I decided try and get over that attitude. Death is something that everyone in the world experiences and can relate to. Art is another thing that everyone in the world experiences and can relate to. So why not make art about death.

This piece was created by waffling a sphere and printing it out on luan. I wanted the sphere to be large enough to get inside but I was restricted by the size of the laser cutter bed. Tired of restricition and ready to solve problems, I cut the sphere into four pieces in Rhino and waffeled them seperately and then bolted them together once they were constructed. The skin is made out of spandex that I sewed together from a template constructed by using the "smash" command on my sphere in Rhino. I made the clock in my enamaling class using the process of "burning out" organic matter to leave a ghost in its place. It represents death going by its own unstoppable time and the loss and memories that are experienced by the living left in its wake. The sphere acts as an egg or a womb. I sit inside and wait for my spiritual rebirth after my fathers death.

Milling Maquette

I treated my milling project as a maquette. The ideal placement for this piece is in a large field surrounded by woods. It would be made out of bronze and the rock in the maquette would be the size of a boulder for sitting on. When putting this sculpture into context I was greatly inspired by Henry Moore's sculpture "Sheep Piece". I loved working with the REN foam. It sanded so nicely and I feel like I was able to paint it as a 3D object and enhance the highlights and lowlights successfully.

SCPT 250/450 Summer 2009: Final Critique

SCPT 250/450 Summer 2009: Final Critique
Originally uploaded by afsart

The Final Critique Presentation for Professor Andrew F. Scott's Digital Applications In Sculpture and Computer Modeling for Sculpture Projects during the Summer Quarter 2009 at the Savannah College of Art and Design.

Students presented work that incorporated CNC milling, Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) and Laser Cutting into their sculptural compositions.

Waffle Project

With this process, almost anything is possible. I like how for relatively little in the way of material you can create something that takes up ten times the space. When I see how the waffle method and grasshopper can be used, my mind starts racing on what that can be used for. A new personal project of mine is going to be creating a chair using one 4'x8' sheet of material.

With this sculpture I wanted to try and do a twisting tower. The great thing about the waffle method is that it saves so much on material. The sculpture stands 19" tall and I was able to fit all of the pieces on one 18"x32" sheet of material

FDM Model

I really enjoyed every aspect of this project. The great thing about the FDM is that there are no rules and anything is possible. I really like the form that I was able to create for this project.
This sculpture is going to take its rightful place on my mantle.

CNC Project Model

Using Rhino 3D I developed a piece that I really liked. The key thing to remember with the CNC process is that it does not respond well to objects with undercuts. Overall I am very happy with the end result. All I really had to do when I got the model back was to sand and paint.

I like eggs more than Waffels....

So I'm not a big fan of waffling. I thought my form looked pretty cool on the computer, but when it printed out it was not as volumetric as I wished.

Taking a Chance with FDM

This is my rendering of my FDM model. We were scared that it would not print because the pieces are so thin. I was very surprised and happy when I saw the final product. Turned out better than I
expected.

Ideas gone bad

Here are the two other ideas I had for the FDM printer. One suffered from bad data on my behalf, and the other just wasn't what I wanted!

Sunday waffles with syrup

The Laser Cutter is controlled by the use of line ONLY! But, the beauty of it is that you can create a 3D form and slice it into individual sections (NURB planes or Waffle systems), send it to the printer and then put the pieces together to form the sculpture! There are only three acts that the laser can perform: cut, engrave, and raster. Here is the waffle surface I chose to create.

Fusing Decomposed Matter

By using polygonal modeling in Maya, I created these two flower forms that are small parts of a larger sculpture I am working on. Unfortunately when the forms came out of the FDM printer and were placed in the sodium hydroxide bath, all of the stamens broke off (they were too thin)!! Fortunately though, I was able to find many of them and recreate some new ones out of a different material.

Feathered slots

As a practice for all the possible uses of the laser cutter, we were assigned to create 2D designs that could be constructed into a larger form through the use of notches. I chose to do feathers being that they naturally have notches. Once the notched shapes were cut, I began to slide them together in order to create a flowing form that would become my maquette possibly for a larger sculpture I would like to create.

Milling drops

This is my prepared Maya model for milling out of REN.


























In order for the machine to be able to create this form, it had to be sliced down the middle and printed in two parts. These are the two parts once printed out of REN:

Laser Cutting Single Surface

This is the Rhino view of my surface with the grasshopper script running to create the waffles for it.

FDM model

This is a maya rendering of my FDM model, which looks oddly similar to the Statue of Liberty's torch.

Milling Sculpture

This is my milling project, rendered in a light blue plastic using hypershot.