Beck's AUArts Blog

    The assignment for this week was to take one of our significant objects, of which mine was a plant, and make it into a 2D template. I ended up redesigning a lot of my plant to print better and appear more realistic. Due to the nature of aloe vera, many of the leaves require lots of work with tabs and many pieces. As seen below, I have my original 3D plant design (left) and my updated, detailed plant on the right. I really like this design, but I have to admit that my modeling plane is very crowded with different tests not to mention all the reject leaves that I've deleted.

The assignment for this week was to create a 3d model and then deconstruct it (by "unfolding it") so that it was 2d. By using surface modeling, we can make easy blueprints for a 3d object.  Below is the practice round I did in class, and it kind of reminds me of the top of a castle. Similar to the type you would see in childhood fairy tales or picture books. My first designed object is Eraserhead's goggles from the show My Hero Academia. The show itself is really important to me for a various number of reasons. Ranging from it being one of my favorite animes, it's also important to me because it was the first anime series I watched with my dad and anime ended up bringing our relationship really close together when it was previously somewhat distant. In the context of the show, Eraserhead's goggles prevent other people from telling when he uses his superpower (quirk) to stop other people's quirks to level the playing field. I think it's cool that someone wi...

Papercraft is something that transforms paper into works of art. It can be used to create a two or three dimensional object. The article that inspired me the most was  Hoang Tien Quyet's wet fold origami animals. It caught my interest at first due to the fact I made origami cranes all the time as a kid, but I was intrigued by how the folds were smooth rather than crisp. I enjoy how the paper looks pristine with clean curves that don't show accidental crumples that sometimes accompany origami. After learning about wet folding from Giang Dinh, Quyet decided to create his own style of origami using the techniques he learned. From what I understand of wet folding, by using thicker paper and having it dry after the paper is formed into it's shape, it creates a more sturdy piece of origami compared to it's original which uses thin pieces of paper for extremely sharp and precise details. He approaches his work with the intent to breath life into his pieces. His horse would hav...

Finally finished Bartholomew III! I've decided to make him mostly shiny to imitate a slimy frog, but I have made his stomach and his toe beans a rougher texture to imitate fur and grip respectively. His big eyes had to be glossy and all seeing and his top hat is a simple felt texture. His tail was rough and textured also to reflect on the difference between smooth frog and beaver tail. I have also added a  lilypad  to Bartholomew to further set the scene, which I smoothed out first in Meshmixer.

Feedback that I received for Bartholomew III was pretty consistent with each person. The initial reaction was that it was cute and creative, but past that I got advice to adjust the hat on him to make it centered. The initial reason to make the hat lopsided was due to the small space between the ears in the original Tinkercad design. In Meshmixer, I decided to make the ears further apart so that the hat could rest more naturally on Bartholomew III's head and I also adjusted the size of the hat to better suit him. Another piece of feedback that I decided to integrate into my design was to add markings to make the overall creature more distinct. Initially in Tinkercad, I claimed that Bartholomew III had a beaver tail but it appeared more like a stretched, flat circle, which didn't show what I wanted to demonstrate.  My creation involves remixing as I altered parts of the frog, such as the eyes to become more bulged out. The rest of the creature encourages read/write culture becau...

  Remix culture doesn't need to make sense and part of it's appeal is the surreal aspect of it. Because of it's ability to take current pieces of work and combine them into something new and different, it allows one greater creativity through speeding up the process compared working from scratch. I mostly think it's cool to be able to take an existing work and remix it by either adding more works or changing it to fit your own style. What if a ghost couldn't float? It'd be able to go through any objects but will have no way of going up or down, meaning it could be stuck drifting underground beneath hills, etc and unable to go on any second stories. This issue would probably be solved by giving a ghost wings. Maybe the type of wings would also indicate morals (devil wings for evil) or personality of when it lived. (Mostly inspired by my excitement for Halloween coming up)  ghost   wings Bathtub filled with toys (rubber duck, toy boat, and a pool floatie), except ...

In response to Gary Hustwit's documentary,  Objectified , I decided upon making a 3d model of a can opener. Specifically a butterfly can opener, rather than the popular manual or bunker can openers. One particular line near the beginning stuck out to me. Dieter Rams said ,  "in my experience, users react very positively when things are clear and understandable... that's what particularly bothers me today, the arbitrariness and thoughtlessness with which many things are produced and brought to market." (11:40) This immediately made me think of the can opener that my roommate had, which we couldn't figure out for the life of us how to use. Only with the assistance of a few google searches was I able to use it. Furthermore, I found that the can opener wasn't very user friendly. Upon using it, my hands hurt and I was thinking they might cramp. Dan Formosa said, "what we really need to do to design is look at the extremes... if we can understand what the extre...