Sarah Pinto: Cardboard Ball

Concept:

Acoustic Guitar

I sought out to create an acoustic guitar from laser engraving in cardboard. I play guitar and I've spent a lot of time around them so when it came down to choosing an object to create, a guitar was at the top of my mind.

Techniques:

I started out in Maya and modeled my guitar. I didn't want the assembling process to be over complicated, so I limited the amount of polygons used. I then transitioned my model to Pepakura and unfolded the model. I made sure everything in the program was set to millimeters. I used the slice tool to make my process easier. Afterwards, I then moved my unfolded guitar model from Pepakura into Rhino and using the appropriate layers (cut lines, mountain lines, valley lines, etc.) The cut lines were originally off (as pictured below), as parts of the lines were missing, however, I went back and manually drew out some of my cut lines and then I was ready for my laser cuts to begin.

Guitar Model from Maya to Pepakura

Guitar Model from Pepakura to Rhino (prior to cut lines being fixed).

Materials:

I used Flute Cardboard for my guitar. I used a hot glue gun to assemble my pieces once they were retrieved from the machine shop and I used various acrylic paints to make my piece look as close to a real guitar as possible.

Flute Cardboard Cutout

Finished Guitar

Me with my new guitar!

Sarah Pinto: Skateboard Deck Laser Engraving

Concept:

I've always been a person that doodles in all of their notebook. My design was a combination of all of my doodles so it would be more intricate. I always draw flowers so my outline was a flower and then I cam in with the more intricate design work. I love yin-yangs, not only for the design but for the meaning as well. The yin, the dark swirl, is associated with shadows, femininity, and the trough of a wave; the yang, the light swirl, represents brightness, passion and growth. According to Chinese theory, there are two forces in the universe. Yin is the passive, negative force, and yang is the active, positive force. According to this theory, wise people will detect these forces in the seasons, in their food, and so on, and will regulate their lives accordingly.           

My Original Sketch

Techniques:

I drew my image by hand, as I love to doodle, I was excited to combine all of my favorite notebook doodles into one. I then scanned the image and transferred it over to Adobe Photoshop and darkened some lines and and filled in some areas. I then transferred it over to Adobe Illustrator using the skateboard deck template and creating the appropriate layers and changing the depth to 0.1mm for raster engraving. I then submitted my files to the machine shop and once it was engraved, I ran over the original design with black paint and then rinsed it off so the design would be stained black and significantly more prominent. 

My design on the AI Skateboard Deck Template

Materials:

I purchased the skateboard deck recommended by Professor Scott on Amazon. "FORESTONE Blank Decks: Deck (Natural)- 8.0 inch: Deep Concave" And after getting my deck engraved, I used black acrylic paint to stain the engraving and make it more prominent.

Engraving Prior to Black Staining

Engraving after Black Staining

Sarah Pinto: Laser Scanning

Concept:

For my project, I used a blue owl shaped salt shaker that I found in my kitchen at home. I felt like scanning the owl would have the right amount of texture, color, and size as well.

Owl Salt Shaker: Pre-Scanned Object

Scanning Process:

For our scan, we used the photogrammetry process. Color is preferred for this process because the camera is able to recognize and focus on the object, however, the object should be matte rather than gloss. Using a matte spray paint, we were able to prep our salt shaker for our photogrammetry process. The salt shaker was places on a cardboard box that was covered with a red cloth to provide a base color. Pictures were taken over the object from one height and moved every half inch. Multiple pictures were taken in rotation, a total of 106 pictures were taken. We built a mesh layer in medium and a text layer in high. The intention behind the mesh layer was to give a more dull effect which was how the owl was intended to appear, as we agreed on there being a more vintage appearance to the owl. Once the owl was rendered, the file was moved to Maya to work with the surroundings and holes in the scan.

Owl Salt Shaker: Post-Scanned Object

Rendering Process:

Throughout this process, I worked to capture pictures that would complement the scans of the owl. I chose to use one of the sides of Residential Hall South and one of the perspectives of the Student Services Building, that also includes the body of water and trees in the center of campus.

Scanned Owl in front of Residential Hall South

Scanned Owl in front of Student Services Building

                               

Leo Haddad - Halloween (Cardboard Ball)

Concept:

For my project I wanted to recreate the design of a crusader helmet. I've always found this helmet interesting because of its simplicity. It's essentially a metal bucket with breathing and seeing holes, and its that exact simplicity that I wanted to mimic.

Technique:

To make my helmet, I took it upon myself to go even simpler and bolder than the original crusader helmet. I got rid of the cross section in the middle because religion doesn't have to be a part of my design. I removed the eye holes and breathing holes, giving the wearer a complete sense of isolation, requiring them to rely entirely on intuition.

Materials:

My mask is made of a dense cardboard. It is robust and intimidating, and those who face a soldier with this mask may think they have the upper hand, but they simply do not understand what they are up against.

Leo Haddad - Week 13 Laser Scanning

Concept:

Dencher Toy

For my project I used the top jaw of a clay dencher model I made a long time ago. I felt like scanning just one jaw would produce a more crisp model with less chance of holes


Techniques:

100K rendering (smooth)

2K rendering (poly)

Rhino 

I scanned the jaw using the NextEngine scanner (12 scans) and then aligned the families for a great scan. I then sent the scan to Rapidworks where I removed the unwanted parts and sanded the final model, but not much more was needed to produce a clean image.

Materials:

I sent my model to Keyshot where added gold and chrome materials to the jaw. I wanted a reflective effect, so I put the jaw above water and manipulated it in keyshot to give it a cool effect. I then placed the jaw in a grassy area where the surrounding materials reflected the jaw and it cast a shadow, giving it a realistic look.

Sarah Roberson: Independent Study

For my independent study, I was building from scratch a set for my Capstone. My capstone was a Stop Motion Animation and the set was an integral part of the overall look and feel of the project. From concept to final product this project took collectively over two months to do. I had set a deadline for myself to be done with the set by the end of October and I delivered.

So the first thing that I was instructed to do was to find pictures that depicted what I wanted the set to look like and put it in a sketchpad which ended up becoming my notebook for the entirety of the project. This reference gathering allowed me to explore the ideas that I wanted to portray.

The story that I was making a set for depicted my character in a desert valley. In my references that I found, I explored both the scaling of a desert valley, a cave and how my characters would look in the middle of them. I also explored texture and color in this as well. This was just to make it as accurate as possible to the overall design. As depicted in the photo on the bottom, I also found pictures that related to bones because the story's valley also has bones in it. This was to further accentuate the story I was trying to create.

My next step from here was to take my favorite photos from this images and turn them into scale models. This step I took tin foil and paper machete it to create machetes. I learned from this what I didn't like and what I did like. It also helped me to figure out what form I wanted to eventually make into a much larger scale. 

(Pictures Above: Before Paper Machete)

(Pictures Below: After Paper Machete)

I created five overall machetes though only a couple are depicted here. I took what I liked from each of them and then combined them to be one big piece. After everything had been covered in paper, then came the part where I discovered what color scheme the pieces were going to be. I took the images that I used for reference and tried to match the color as well as I could. I first tried to match the color by using Prismacolor pencils. Then I used Acrylic Paints to try and match the pencil color. I approached it this way to make sure that I got as accurate of a color scheme as I could and if I ran into color problems, I would be able to backtrack much easier with color pencil rather than paints.

(The Machete I ended up liking depicted in the pictures below)

Then came the fun part. Putting inside Rhino. This process included drawing lines over the parts of the machete I wanted to use and then going inside Rhino and trancing it to create a curve network. There were three separate pieces in the ending not to scale model that I ended up using to create the bigger pieces with, though only one is shown below. In order to create this curve network inside Rhino, I had to take a front, side, and bottom pictures of the piece there for I could recreate it inside the software.

(ABOVE: Curves created from tracing the pictures)

(BELOW: Curve Network created from those curves.)

The curve network was then reduced further by rebuilding the object using the rebuild command. This was to create a low polly pepakura style piece that would be later laser cut and then put together to create the final piece. Overall I had three rocks and each varied in size. The smallest of them was 2 and 1/2 feet tall and the tallest one which is depicted above was 2 and 3/4 feet tall. This was to ensure that the scale of my puppet models matched the scale of the object and than neither looked too small or too large against one another.

I got the rocks laser cut in three separate instances. This was to ensure that I didn't confuse the pieces as well as making sure that everything got put together properly. Then it came to the arduous task of putting them all together. The pieces were all cut from E-Flute cardboard which gives them the white color on the front.

I used a mixture of hot glue and super glue to put these massive pieces together. I basically put the loops together and then put them all together to create the final piece for the set. For one of them, I also inverted it so instead of it being white it was the traditional brown that cardboard usually is.

Then to finish them off once I put them all together, I used masking tape to hide the seams and make it look flawless. This is what the picture above looks like. I designed them to be multi purpose pieces so that if needed I could flip one over on its side to make a cave or something else like that.

Overall, I learned the process of what it takes to create a set from start to finish. I had never really thought of doing reference before and so when the professor recommended that I do that, it started to make a whole lot more sense to me. The end result is that I had three unique pieces that would eventually be used to create the set for my stop motion animation capstone. This by far had to be one of my most favorite projects I've done and I hope to be able to do it again in the future.

The one thing that I would do in the future if I were to repeat this project would be to design some handles or something to make it easier to transport and move around when I'm working with them. 

Capstone Video