BlackManGrove: Pepakura02

BlackManGrove: Pepakura02
Originally uploaded by afsart

It's really nice when things come together. I had fun putting this piece together. I challenged myself to build it without looking at the computer model. It certainly went together better than the first model in tag board. This paper stock has a lot more structural integrity and I will be using it to construct more paper models this summer.

I am awaiting some brush-on epoxies from polygem that I will be using to further stiffen the model in order to make it more permanent. There is a clear epoxy that goes on very thin that will stiffen the paper and another product that can be used to build up a 1/8-1/4" shell. For this model I will be using the clear to coat this model.

Joe Siepel, a fellow sculptor stopped by to talk with me the other day and began to admire the piece. He told me that he loved the numbers on the piece that are used for registration. I told him that I liked them too and that I really love the way they become more dense in the areas of high detail in the model. He made me promise not to cover them up.
When he said that he reminded me of my good friend Scott Bennett. Scott would come by as I was creating the wire-frame substructure for one of my planar sculptures. Scott would tell me to "stop, it's done". I would always end up covering up all the substructures with steel plates, this would annoy my good friend to no end.

This study is more about the digital fabrication process and will reflect the hand of the artist and the tools that were used to create it. The numbers stay. I hope this makes both my friends happy. "Pretty good Bud"

AFSart: BlackManGrove Resilience

July 11, 2010

All the three elements have been produced. cnc, mill and fdm. Now each element will need to be refined as the final sculpture is completed. More posts coming as the work progresses.

7/10/2010 AFSart: blackmangrove | pneumatophores

fdm models of the Pneumatophores have been completed they will be molded and cast to create multiple copies from the originals.

July 7, 2010: Digital Sand

1.5"x48"x48" 3.8x122x122 cm.cnc milled foam sculpture that will be used as the base for the resilience sculpture. the surface was created from a heightfield model in rhino. this form will be covered and textured using sculpting epoxy. the work had a four hour build time. Thank you to Bob Delli Bovi for helping to process this job.

June 27, 2010

At about the 60% phase on this sculpture. The epoxy work is done. I have to resolve the eyes and the mouth. Then it is on to the base. This evening I will work on the models for the pneumatophores so that they can be fdm printed. Oce printed they will be molded so that casts can be created from them. I intend to use foam to create the massing for the base.

This work embodies the sculptural attitude that when you complete a digital fabrication process you are only at the 40% stage of the sculptural development.

When I created the original Pepakura Study I used manilla tag board. I was somewhat disappointed by the lack of structural integrity in the material. When I stuffed the piece in my car the paper lost alot of its structure and began to buckle. At one point I thought about cutting the work apart to cannibalize the parts. (I've been known to so that) the piece sat in my garage for a couple weeks until the end of the quarter.

In one of those what the heck moments I took it to the studio and decided to see if I could cover the paper in plaster to see how it would hold up. To my surprise it worked very well. As the legs were completed the head began to regain some of its integrity. I decided to cover the head with rigid rap in order to maintain some of the details of the underlying form. Suffice it to say I am very happy with the results.

I am currently covering the plaster with sculpting epoxy bringing to life the black mangrove tree form. The shift in scale imbue the work with more power and sculptural presence. As I was working I realized that I will be able to bring to life an earlier computer model that I created around the idea of BlackManGrove Pneumatophores.

In the proposal i stated that "The “Black Man Grove” series adopts the mangrove tree as a symbol of the African Diaspora. Nature has provided the mangrove with many adaptations that has allowed them to thrive in challenging ecological environments. The form of the work incorporates the tap root system and pneumatophores of the mangrove tree with anthropomorphic abstractions of the human form that resemble and allude to African Nkonde and Nkisi invocation figures. The resulting objects combine to create a testament to the resilience of nature and the human spirit."

I will be posting the progress of this work and It will be one of the themes that I will be exploring during this summer.

Yuma Watanabe: Final Presentation Posting

Since last time I posted my projects,
I made several changes for final presentation.
I would like to talk about them one by one .




















For my first project The Laughing Buddha,
I covered him with red plastic and got frame.
I think I could successfully expressed my Asian culture with him.
The color Red is one of the most important color in Asian culture.
It means Anti-Demon. Many legendary Asian artists chose the color red for
the sculpture of Buddha.
The circle takes important role in Buddhism as a life cycle.
Because the goal of the Buddhism is escaping from the life cycle.
These circle on the surface of my Buddha represents the people,
who are supposed to have fun with The Laughing Buddha.















The squid FDM project actually came out with broken arms.
I fixed up at the time of final presentation finally!
The meaning behind this sculpture is
that after the era of human, many biologists says it will be squids era.
So this sculpture represents the end of the human at the same time,
the beginning of squid's era.
I call this sculpture as "Ω"(omega).















As I mentioned in earlier post,
I spray painted my first Laser cutting project.
I actually spray painted this for the reason of craftsmanship
and it came out quite clean.















Mentioning again, the meaning behind this sculpture is
my expression of the life.
Because one's life is beautiful and complicated.
Also, it repeats up and down until the end.




















At last, I would like to introduce you my lighting sculpture,
The Face of Ra(Egyptian god of the sun).
I painted his face with gold because the color gold is really respected color
in Ancient Egyptian culture as all kings' death masks are made by gold.




















This sculpture has one big problem that
it doesn't have a whole on the top of his head.
So the heat cannot escape and possibly the sculpture would be on fire.

Anyways, throughout the quarter,
I learned how the digital elements came out to the real world
and this experience will definitely help me to model or get inspired
for the projects in the future.

I would like to give all of my thanks to Prof. Scott
and 3 classmates survived with me until the end of the quarter.
It was great experience and memories.
See you guys later and have a great summer!

Yuma Watanabe

William Gross: FDM Project

William Gross


Using a combination of Rhino3D and Maya I was able to construct a spiky sphere that could be 3D printed. I was focused on creating it for an architectural application where it will be used as a lighting fixture. I created realistic renderings using Hypershot and added them to various scenes to add context.

Esteban Urrea's laser cutter exercise

This exercise was intended to help us understand the format for the laser cutting files, how to set up the images on a template and how to properly color the images. In my case the colors which i used for my application were; red for text, blue for interior cuts, magenta for exterior cuts and cyan for the template. After the files were completed we were to print out the laser cutter form get Professor Scott to sign them and take our files to the guy running the laser cutter. Then pick up our pieces later on that day!

Esteban Urrea's Project 3: Egg

For project three I began with the torus form of a sphere in Rhino. I then created a crater on front side and three pipes which attached the crater to the back side, then set the form on a rectilinear base. Using the "Contour" command I was able to split the form into layers. I cut out two .25 inch squares in each of the layer surfaces, while the form was still a hole. Then I started to unstack, number and place the layers into six 18x32 inch cyan rectangles. Once placed I changed the curves to their appropriate colors, saved the file and sent it to the laser cutter. Once I got back all my pieces I assembled then by running .25 inch dowl rods through the holes cut out prior, then glued the ends for a final piece.

Esteban Urrea's Project 1: Nurbs Tire Tracks

For Project 1 and my first ever attempt at 3d modeling in a computer I created a relief that looked like tire tracks. The process began by creating a surface in Rhino and the image of the tracks in Adobe Illustrator. I then transferred the file from Illustrator to Rhino and extruded the image, placed it on my surface and then lofted them all together. The process I did would have been correct expect I lofted the curves instead of the surfaces. The amount of naked edges was ridiculous and it was time to do it again. Once there were no naked edges the rendering was printed out using a 3 axis milling machine, the material used was a high density foam. The next process was to take Brush On 40, a product from Smooth On and create a mold. After the mold i created a mother mold from plaster and burlap, from there I was able to pour plastic, plaster and wax. I ended up using 2 plaster copies for the final transformation of the piece. I cut along the recessed areas of the relief which left me with with individual pieces of plaster. Then I created another relief on top of black foam core using epoxy as my adhesive.

Esteban Urrea's Project 2: Implied X's- FDM Model

For project two I chose to create a 3d form in Rhino that is based on the principle of repetition. By repeating, enlarging and cutting a diamond I arrived at my three elements; the center diamond and the two opposite facing angles. Then stacking the unit group on top of one another to create the form that now exists. I was able to print 5 copies out of a 8x6x6 block of material, each piece is 8x2.5x1.5.

After the pieces were printed I placed them into a dark lit environment. The enviorment is a 12x20x15 enclosed box with flaps on the front which allow for view to the interior. The interior has 4 of the 5 pieces which are painted silver, wire mesh and a blue and white light. The interior also has music that plays at a low level to help with the interaction of the other senses.

Yuma Watanabe Project4

For my project4, I got inspired by the Egyptian god of the sun "Ra" who has falcon head.
So I thought it would be the best shape for my lighting sculpture.
First, I got the picture of falcon head as my template and then started modeling in Cinema 4D as you can see above.
















Then I exported Cinema 4D file as 3ds, then imported to the Rhino.
It took a few hour to figure out how I can make the space inside of the falcon head,
but now it is ready to go!















The pieces came out like this... so chaos... but thank god that Prof. Scott told us how to put numbers on the pieces.



















This is how I pre-stacked pieces. Since I didn't make whole for the pole, I have to grue them.
But it will be cool lighting sculpture for sure!

Yuma Watanabe Project3

My first laser cutting project took long time to come up with idea.
It is because of that I could not imagine how my pieces would get together in 3 dimension.

So I decided to create simple shape with crazy pattern as you can see that the bigger pieces in the middle are in arch shape about 120 degree which arrow me to create circular form when I connect them together. The smaller pieces simply connect bigger pieces in different height with continuation.


















This picture is when I was putting the pieces together.
It actually came out interesting. When you pay attention to the object, you will find that 5 different spirals are supporting each other to create one big form.
Repeating up and down again and again, the sculpture is suitable to be called as my expression of "Life" since one's life is always repeats up/down movement with complicated situation, still goes on until the end.

Today, I spray painted the sculpture in white color and they looks really crucial.
I cannot wait to present them to the class.

Yuma

Jonathan Sells Project 3: Waffle Constructions

Using Rhino and the grasshopper script by Andrew Payne I made the following surface waffle as a test. It took 3 sheets of 18x32 cardboard to complete the X and Y strut curves.


Screenshot


Next, I took the same concept and integrated it into the goblin bust geometry from project 2 except I decided to take the ears off since the pieces would be too small. A similar workflow was executed here though I used pipes for the intersections where the X and Y strut notches will be. The cutMyOwnRibs.rvb script did not produce favorable results so in turn the process was done manually using pipes on those intersections and then cutting the surfaces. After this I used the massiveUnroll.rvb script to produce my curves for the laser. This project took 11 sheets of 18x32 cardboard.

Notch thickness: .24 (cardboard)

Laser-Cut Project

William Gross

Using a head model in Rhino3D I was able to input a contour command to create lines spaced out evenly on top of the surface. I then took those lines and laid them flat so they could then be lasercut out of cardboard. There was a total of 3 sheets of 18"x32" cardboard. Using the holes I created, I inserted a threaded rod through to hold the pieces together and give the sculpture some weight. Each piece is spaced with washers to separate the shapes.

CNC Mill Project

William Gross















Using Rhino3D and a 3-axis mill I was able to create a surface that exhibits both flow and proud form. Two large blocks of high-density foam were milled out and then covered with a urethane mold making material called brush-on 40. After the urethane mold dried, plaster and burlap were used to create a mother mold that gives it strength and rigidity. Concrete was the casting material I used to achieve a sense of considerable weight combined with a free flowing shape. The base is laser-cut acrylic that was then stacked and sandblasted to to get a shape that could light up with an RGB LED and also hold up the weight of the sculpture.

Jannelle Wheelock: Starting the base

So I went and picked up the wood to start the box that will be below the wheel and hold all the electronics. It was quite interesting trying to bike with it - it was heavier than I expected.

One of the most difficult parts of constructing this piece is that I want to make it so I can take the entire thing apart and collapse it down so I can ship it to California without worrying about it getting crushed.

Todd, at the Boundary Hall wood shop, helped give me advice on the construction of the box, showed me the different tools and how to use them. Thank you Todd!
I started off constructing the pieces for the octogonal shape. I cut all the pieces to size so I could contruct it the next day.

I then moved on to construct the bottom of the box. All the pieces were put through the planar tool, glued together, and left overnight to glue

Janelle Wheelock: 3-D Zoetrope

So my project has been an interesting one so far. I had to animate the expressions, duplicate each head out, prepare all 35 heads for the FDM printer and convert them to STL files. I sent them to the printer and am currently working with Will Gross to configure the motor part of the Zoetrope.

I need the dimensions of the motor and accessories before I can finalize design for the box that will go below the spinning zoetrope part.