Christopher Rickett - Serial Slice

Concept: For this serial slice project, I wanted to create a structure that, while structurally sound because of the rods and glue holding it together, appeared to be doing a balancing act. What I ended up with was a structure that resembled a rock stack.

Technique: The technique that I used to create this rock was creating 8 different curves and making 2 smaller duplicates of each one. I spread them out from top to bottom at different distances and then lofted them together. The total height came out to just over 10.5". I contoured the model at 1/4" intervals to get the slicing that I wanted.

Material: I chose to go with 1/4" cardboard for this project.  I Liked the dark brown color that it had, and it contrasts nicely with the light wooden base that I had put it on. Overall, I liked the way That it came out and I would like to see how it would would look if I had more slices and made it out of a dark wood and maybe the thickness of 1ply cardboard.

Christopher Rickett: pepakura

Concept: The concept for this piece was to create something that was beautifully simplistic in design. I decided to do a large upright piece that was  that could possibly be an exterior installation in front of a building.



Technique: I modeled this piece in Maya because I found it easier to work directly with polygons instead of converting from a nurbs surface to polygon mesh in Rhino. I used the twist tool to torque a cube for the base and joined it to a sphere. The star like points are simply extruded from the sphere, then the end vertices were merged to their centers to create points.

Materials: I applied a few different materials to this model because I thought it could be aesthetically pleasing if it were made from all of these material. I decided to go with metal, stone, and even a glass or plastic like finish.

Christopher Rickett: Waffle Structure

Concept: the concept for this waffle structure evolved from point A to point B.  I always wanted it to be an amorphous shape, because I love the organic feeling that is given by it. I also wanted it to have holes going through I thought it would look interesting to have gaps in the waffling. As I created the slots for the waffling, I noticed that what I was looking at looked a lot like structural beams for buildings, and I thought it would be interesting to represent that as a part of the piece.  I decided to cover the piece and then tear away parts of the covering to "expose" the underlying structure.

Technique: To create this, I created curves and lofted them.  I then projected curves onto the surface and trimmed out holes. lastly I used the blend surfaces command  to reconnect the edges of the holes. this also allowed me to customize the curvature of the surface around the holes.  As for creating the waffling itself, I played with different combinations of contouring along the X, Y, and Z axis' to find the one I thought would, one: look the best, and two: be the easiest to create slots in and reconstruct after being printed.

Materials: The waffle structure was printed on .25" cardboard but for Keyshot, I used a metal texture. This way, it really captures the structural skeleton that I was envisioning as I was designing this piece.

Christopher Rickett : Slots

Concept:  I wanted to do something that was based off of triangles, because three sided objects are the some of the most stable structures. therefore all of my shapes are based off of this concept. also wanted to incorporate curved shapes within these straight edged shapes to give some more variety to them.

Technique: To create these shapes, I used the create polygon command to create a nine sided polygon curve. From there, I simply divided the shape up using lines and curve booleaned the shapes that I wanted from the root template. 

Result:  the end result was a series of incomplete modular units attached to one another in an a way that is reminiscent of molecular bonding. also it is constructed in such a way the it allows the viewer to fill in the gaps with their mind to complete the shapes.

Christopher Rickett: Laser Engraving

Concept: After learning about the assignment, I immediately knew that I wanted to do a raster image for my laser engraving. I wanted to create a piece that was purposely unrecognizable, sort of like  macro photography. My final design was a sort of off kilter Rorschach using white, black and 50% gray.

Technique: I started with an image of a paint splatter I had created, and gray-scaled it, I then mirrored the image across both horizontally and vertically, rotated the entire image so that it sat at an angle and posterized it. I also messed with some exposure and saturation levels to limit the number of gray-scale levels there were.

End Result: The end result was rather interesting and I learned something from it.  While the original image was very clean, it did not print well on the material that I had chosen, that being plywood. It came out a little "muddy", but it overall I think it is still quite a beautiful piece. I would like to try it again, maybe printing on a different material, of possible inverting the colors to reduce the amount of negative space making the shapes stand out a little more.

Christopher Rickett: Hoedown - Prosthetic Accessory

Concept: For this prosthetic, the concept was to create something fun, yet still practical, so I came up with a design for a cowboy boot. I didn't want something that form fitting and in the exact shape of a lower leg, so I designed it to be wider at the top like an actual cowboy boot. This is something that could be worn casually, or be taken for a night on the town, because boots are great for both occasions.

Technique: To make this model, I built my way up to the final product using multiple curves as the framework for all of the shapes.  I used the curve network tool to get the basic anatomy of the prosthetic. I used the split tool to create multiple sections from projected curves ,which were then offset at varying amounts.

Materials:  The materials I used for this model were mostly softer plastics, so that it looked as though it had been made from a malleable material.  I wanted to keep it as close to leather as possible and still be made from something that was moldable. The colors that I chose compliment each other, and stick with an earth tone pallet that is consistent with leather.

Christopher Rickett: Week 4 - USB

Concept: For this model I just wanted to do something fun.  So while it looks like a normal flash drive, it has a whimsical exterior because of the smiley face. And the key ring on the back end just rounds the whole thing out nicely.

Technique: To get this model, I used a lot of projected curves, curve extrusions and trimming to get the cuts along the edges of the drive. The smiley face was created with cylinders and extruded curves as solids and Boolean differences.  I used a text solid to create the lettering on the top of the drive.

Materials: The materials I chose are pretty basic. The main piece that makes up the outer shell is a hard plastic while the smile face and the lettering have a rubber material applied to them.  As for the rest of the drive, the materials are standard. Different metals and black hard plastic are applied to the end of the drive, and the ring is a hard plastic.

Christopher Rickett: Week 4 - Detergent Bottle

Concept: The concept was pretty straight forward. I wanted to make one of those large volume detergent bottles that you can get at the store, but have it be a bit unique in its shape.  The indention around the bottle is a little larger than a normal one would be.

Technique: To make this model, I used multiple curves to build the majority of the bottle. To make the bottle itself, I made use of the sweep rail tool. There is a screw thread on the top of the bottle that was created using rail sweeping as well.

Materials: The materials used are a variety of plastics. One is a hard plastic that was used for the lid, and the other was softer plastic for the bottle which gives it a malleable look. The spout is a a transparent plastic.

Christopher Rickett: Week 3 - Hammer

Concept:  The concept for this model was to make a hammer that drifted away from a normal hammer.  After looking through reference images I found myself looking at the same things over and over.  After refining searches, I came across hammer weapons, and I thought they looked cool, so I decided to stylize my model to mirror something like that.

Technique:  I used a variety of tools to make this model.  The curve tool and revolve tool were used to create the head of the hammer. The fillet edge tool was used to give a rounded look to much of the model.  I used Boolean difference to create cuts in the grip of the handle as well as the hole in the axe blade.

Materials:  I wanted this model to look like something old. I used an ultras scratched steel metal on the hammer/blade to give it an aged look.  The handle has a wooden material and the grip has a soft, leather-like look to it to give it the appearance that it was made before rubber grips were invented. 

Christopher Rickett: Week 3 - Mouse

Concept: My concept was a mouse that was rather simple yet sleek.  I wanted to be something that could easily be used by anyone if it was real.  I added a cord coming out of the front just to help round out the whole look of it.

Technique: The main technique that I used was using the Split tool to cut out surface shapes and then Extrude Surfaces to create cut out pieces for the mouse buttons and the piece that is on the back.  I used the Fillet Edge tool to make smooth and rounded edges in places.  Another tool big tool that I used was the Sweep Rails command to create the main shell of the mouse.

Materials: I wanted to keep it simple, so the materials I used were just as simple.  For most of the pieces, I used a hard plastic, and the scroll wheel has a rubber material on it. As for color, I mentioned that it was a mouse that could be used by anyone, even kids; that is why I choose colors such as blues and orange. 

Christopher Rickett: Week 2 - Duck

Concept: For this duck model I found myself looking at the rubber duck collection that my roommate has and found that he didn’t have one that looked like a punk duck. I thought it would be fun to create something like that.

Technique:  I used the Select Points Tool to stretch spheres into the basic shapes.  I used curves to split the wings and the beak away from the body and head.  The Blend Surface tool was used to merge the head to the body, as well as connect the wings back to the body to give it a smoother molded shape to the wings.  The Bend tool was used to create angry looking eyebrows.

Materials:  All of the materials used were intended to give it the appearance of a true rubber duck. The Spikes on the head are colored green to best contrast with red of the body. The only material not used in this way was a gold colored nickel material that was applied to the ring that hangs from the tip of the beak.