Kaylie Moore: Week 9 Laser Cutting

Concept:
While learning how to use FlatFab I made a series of practice models, mainly just a few abstract shapes and models of the heads of various animals. After I felt I was comfortable with FlatFab, I decided to adjust and expand one of those practice models, and decided to go with an elephant mostly just because I liked that model best.

FlatFab Model

Techniques:

Using FlatFab, I first created the head of the elephant, adding ears and experimenting with both separate and connected trunk pieces. I then created the body and connecting leg shape, duplicating the leg four times, flipping them across the X or Z axis, and rotating them to create enough stability to support the weight of the body and head without each leg being flat on the ground. To finish I exported it into Illustrator and made sure each part connected cleanly before exporting it into Rhino to clean up the cuts and format the layers properly.

Rhino file

Materials: 
I sent my file to the Machine Shop to be laser cut from a 24x48 in. piece of E-Flute cardboard. I didn't really like the look of the plain cardboard, so I then decided to add a thin layer of fiber paste for texture and spray painted it grey, adding a few details such as eyes with acrylic paints. In Keyshot I used very simple colors to go with the simple design and structure. I envisioned it placed as a large sculpture in a park.

Cardboard model

Painted model

KeyShot

Kaylie Moore: Week 8 3D Print

Ghosted shot

Concept:

From the beginning of this project I wanted to create something that was both functional and abstract. One of my main ideas was a bowl or container of some sort for keys, change, and so one, as I often find myself forgetting where I put my keys. Instead of a more typical shallow bowl, however, I decided to make something that could act as an abstract sculpture as well, depending on how large I made it and what I decided to do with the finished product. I also wanted it to look somewhat abstract and organic, so most of my early models began as spheres or teardrops that I could then manipulate in different ways.

Ghosted layer shot

Techniques:

I began my designs with a sphere, and manipulated the control points to create a shallow bowl. Once I had my bowl, I began to play around with the shape, rebuilding the surface as necessary as I worked with the control points. Over the course of a week or so, I created three separate models based on the original bowl, with varying levels of abstraction. I also experimented with adding holes, indentations, or patterns to the surface using booleans, but eventually decided to keep it simple. Once I had a model that I liked, I leveled the bottom of the bowl using another boolean to give it more stability. 

Keyshot rendering 1

Keyshot rendering 2

Materials:

In Keyshot, I decided to use the Midnight Storm Axalta Paint. The dark blue color, combined with the reflective material, made the bowl look somewhat reminiscent of an inverted wave, which fit the more abstract, organic look I was aiming for with this project. I painted the final print similarly, in shades of blue, adding lighter shades to the edges and ridges and darker shades to the interior.

3D Print

Kaylie Moore: Week 1 Castle

Concept

My original idea was to create a space station or floating castle. I wanted to combine the more traditional architecture and materials that one would normally associate with European-style castles with the structure of a space station or space ship. I especially wanted to convey a lack of a clear up and down by reflecting architectural elements across the x-y plane.

Techniques

I began my castle by extruding a circle to create a cylinder as the central tower. I then used the tube tool to surround it with an outer wall, decorated with a smaller tower. Once I had created the cylinders and boxes that made up the various towers, I added the roofs. The roof of the tower on the outer wall were created with a cone and truncated cone, and I used the mirror tool to reflect it over the x-y plane before copying and pasting the resulting tower at three points along the outer wall. The roof of the square tower was created in a similar manner using pyramids. For the rounded roofs of the central tower, however, I used the parabola tool, editing the control points to vary the size or height. After creating the walls and roofs, I decided to add small details such as a pipe around the edge of the roof, as well as several columns, as decoration and support. The final detail I added was the supports that connect the outer wall to the central towers, which I created by extruding a rectangle that I drew at a slight angle between two of the towers.

Materials

When I considered my materials, I experimented with both metals and other materials that one would find on a space station as well as more traditional materials such as brick and stone. I decided to use brick for the walls, stone for the supports, and tile for the roofs because I felt it not only suited the castle’s appearance better but also gave it a more fantastical or magical feeling than the various metallic materials I tried. Despite this it didn’t look too old fashioned, which was my main concern with using more traditional materials, especially after I applied a dark paint to the brick that muted its original bright red color as well as allow me to include a subtle difference between the inner and outer walls.