JieXing Yee: Week 4 Serial Slicing

 Concept:

The concept for my model is a pink flower, layered like an iris flower, that also has rose thorns. I also decided to add a base so that it can stand on its own, and at the same time, I added a cat tail on to it. 

Techniques:

I built my model in Rhino starting from the base. First, I created the base using a cylinder, and then I made another cylinder for the stem. Then, I drew a curve using the Control Point Curve tool, and used the Pipe: Round Caps tool to make the shape of the tail based on the curve. After that, I created the thorns with a small pyramid, moved it to the edge of the stem, scaled it appropriately, and then Mirrored it. Then I made copies and put them in their respective spots. Next, I created a sphere, then drew a Polyline across the center, and then Trimmed the top half off. Lastly, I used BooleanUnion for all the pieces and I finished my base.

For the flower, I used the Control Point Curve tool to create the shapes I want the petals to have, using two curves - one for the length and width, and one for the thickness. Then I used the RailRevolve tool to create a single petal. After that, I duplicated the petal, then rotated and scaled them accordingly, and then I moved it to the top of the stem. The model is complete.

After that, I prepared my model for serial slicing. I inserted two cylinders into the model’s base, and then I used Contour for the base on its own, and then I did the same for each individual petal for the flower. Then, I used ExtrudeCurve to make a serial sliced model that I can port to KeyShot. Lastly, I used the Gumball to make every angled curve flat, so that I can place it in the reference box for laser cutting. I also added a cat paw as a vector engraving on the top piece of the base here.

Materials:

In KeyShot, I applied the Paint Matte Black material on every piece of the model, and then I recolored the flower parts to their respective colors. I also applied an area light onto a sphere to light the model. For the environment, I picked an indoor setting that has a muted floor color.

For the post processing work, I ran into a few complications. First of all, the holes for the dowel rods were too small, which meant that I could not fit the dowel rods I bought through my model. Somewhere along the way, maybe between transferring the file from Rhino 5 to Rhino 7, the hole sizes changed. Since I couldn’t use the dowel rods, I attempted to use rope instead. It worked, but it was extremely wobbly, so I had to insert thin food sticks into the holes to give it some rigidity and prevent it from collapsing on itself. With that kinda fixed, I moved on to painting it. I spray painted the entire base in black, and then spray painted the different petal parts pink and purple. Here, I run into my other problem. I overlooked the fact that the cardboard pieces were light enough to be nudged around by the spray. And then, I also didn’t think about the fact that newspapers would stick onto the pieces, and thus most of them have newspaper bits stuck on them. After that, I glued the flower pieces together, then attached it to the top of the stem, and the model is complete.