Shannon Slane: FDM

Ever since I saw my beautifully talented friend Falynn Koch's illustrations of a pregnant rat, I'd wanted to make it in the three dimensional world, and also turn it into a lamp; which occurred to me because her drawings illustrate the rat in darkness and again in light.

I love a surprise, and so in much of my work I try to incorporate an element of discovery. I feel this gives an audience a sense of connection with me and my imaginings, and it creates an experience, which I feel that all good art should do for a person on some level.

To start with, I designed mamma rat and her offspring in Rhino, and had the whole family cnc printed. I then primed the rat, added a texture to the fur, and created a silicone OOMOO 25 mold for her.

Tonight, I plan to cast everybody with Smooth-Cast 300, and then hollow out mamma rat and turn her into a lamp. I plan to poxy the babies against the sides of her belly, so you can see their outlines within her when the lamp is lit. If this does not yield the result that I'm looking for, I plan to paint black dotted outlines inside of the lamp, as in Falynn's illustration. I'm also going to add felt ears to the final product. I wanted some part of her to be soft! This also will add to my plan to make her look somewhat scrappy; she is all knocked up after all.

More to come, and soon!