Alec McKay: Slots

Concept: After looking through several animal silhouettes, I came across birds and decided that a flock of birds would be perfect for this type of process. From there, I tracked down one image with several silhouettes of the same type of bird, so that the different silhouettes would look like they go together. I also thought that birds lent themselves well to the incorporation of slots, because I was able to incorporate them into feathers or the beak, and they don't look too conspicuous.

Technique: I brought the images into Illustrator and generated curves from the silhouettes. After that, I brought them into Rhino and created rectangles that were exactly 0.06 inches wide. Then I arranged them around each bird piece and connected them to the silhouette curves with some trimming and joining. After cutting a couple test pieces, I reduced the size to 0.05 for a tighter grip between the pieces. I created a few different arrangements, with one being the more organized V shape and another being an attempt at a more chaotic swarm, but I thought the V shape worked the best with my pieces and looked the best.

Material: I decided to go with the E-Flute cardboard because I thought the birds would look best in a thin material, so they'd be more delicate. It was also the cheaper material, and I figured that if this came out well I could do another run with a nicer material at another time. The one regret that I had with this decision was that the cardboard isn't a very sturdy material so some parts of my pieces bent easily.