JieXing Yee: Week 12 Pepakura Creature

 

Concept

The concept for my creature is a cat with features from other animals merged together.

I used a sitting cat as a base, and then I added on bat wings, horse mane, fox ears,

a unicorn horn, mouse feet, a lion’s tail, with a fire as the tip of the tail.

I thought a chimera would be a cool idea to see in pepakura form.

Techniques

For my model, I mainly used Cylinders and Bend them to get it to the right shape. I also adjusted the Control Points manually to achieve the shapes I needed. I also used Cones for the claws, Capped Pipes for the tail, and a Cut Sphere for the lower body. I then used Twist for the horn as well. For the mane, ears, and wings, I created a surface with Control Point Curves, duplicated them, and then used Blend Surface to connect them together. Lastly, I also used BooleanUnion to merge every piece together.

Materials

In KeyShot, I used the Cardboard Paper for the model, and then changed the color to better fit my vision. I also used a Black Floor Gradient and Los Angeles Midday and Sunset for my environments, and adjusted them until I got the proper background I wanted. I also created a sphere and used Area Light 1200 Lumen Warm for its material, to cast shadows on the floor.

For post processing, we used Loctite super glue and tape to attach all the pieces together. After that, we painted all the seams white to give it a more uniform look.

GROUP

Design Choice

My group mates are Cristian and Jackie, and we picked Cristian’s design to go forward with. Cristian called this creature a Chimera, and we chose it because it was the most suitable for the project. My model was overly complicated and was losing a lot of detail from reducing the poly count, and Jackie had not finished her model when we were choosing one. Cristian’s Chimera was also symmetrical, which would be a lot easier to assemble due to being able to compare parts from each side. His Chimera also had a more integrated design than mine so I thought it was more interesting.

Responsibilities

Our responsibilities were divided into laser cutting and assembling. Cristian was responsible for getting the cardboard laser cut, and me and Jackie split the pieces to assemble. Jackie assembled the legs and underbody while I assembled the head, upper body, wings, and tail. After that, me and Jackie met up to put our halves together, and do post processing work on it. We also split the money costs 3-ways and paid equally for it. 

Process

This entire project was frustrating for me. First off, I didn’t know Rhino well enough to be able to create my model in a way I want to. After that, reducing the poly count on the model was also a mess, because details would be lost, and the faces were set up in an overly complicated manner that it was difficult to keep track of different faces. Next is the Pepakura, where there were times when the edges just did not make sense at all. Lastly, the assembly was the worst of it all. I’m not very good with my hands, and working with a material as easy to break as cardboard was difficult. Certain pieces would be too thin to bend, and some others would just break off completely if I accidentally put in too much strength. Overall, it was not a fun experience at all, but it was a great learning experience instead.