Brittany Jones: Waffle Lamp - "Comet"

Concept

As a school spirited UT Dallas graduate student, I wanted to incorporate the university's outer space theme into one of my projects. Since we're the "Comets" and comets emit light, I thought it would fit well with the waffle lamp project. I browsed Pinterest and Google images for comets and waffle lamps to become more familiar with the fabricated models out there. Then I drew a quick sketch.


Modeling Techniques
In Rhino, I combined a Nurbs sphere and a truncated cone to create the base shape. Then I copied the sphere and scaled it down inside the first sphere. I used the Boolean difference to carve out the center of the comet. For the comet trail, I used the cage editing tool to scale down the middle section of the cone to create a curve. After that I copied the cone shape and scaled it down inside the first cone. Then I used the Boolean difference to carve out the inside of the comet trail. For the notch details of the tail along the sides of the radial slices, I drew a handle curve and extruded it to create a poly surface. Then I modeled four cubes and a couple cylinders for the light bulb holder. I scaled one cylinder smaller than the other and used the Boolean difference to create a 1 inch hole. I copied the piece and moved it to the opposite side of the sphere to create two options for the light bulb placement.

For the contouring process I first contoured the Z axis. Then I created a bounding box and went to my top view to create a radial section for the X axis. After that I went through the process of cutting my ribs. The material thickness and cylinder thickness was 0.12. Then I used the massive unroll script to lay out my contours for slicing.

Materials
I used brown hardboard for the physical material of the Comet lamp. For the light bulb, I chose to get a flickering orange flame to emulate the fire of a comet. Due to the optional light bulb placements and form, the lamp can also be hung upside down.

Brittany Jones: Pepakura - "Loving Reach"

Concept
Professor Andrew F. Scott gave us the idea in class one day. At first, I thought it would be strange having multiple Pepakura hands produced, however, this turned out to be my favorite of all the projects this semester.

As the project progressed, I began to think about the deeper conceptual meaning of the project. Hands are expressive and every individual's hands tell a unique story. I decided to name my project "Loving Reach" to represent my endless reach for love. Whether it's the unconditional love of another, my desire to help, serve, and inspire others through education, or the passionate love of my creative endeavors (3D modeling, photography/cinematography, digital fabrication, and playing/composing piano music).

Modeling Techniques
During one class day, we created molds of our hands. My right hand had a sensitive area due to biting the skin around one of my fingernails, and I didn't want to irritate it further, so I chose to mold my non-dominant left hand. The process of creating a mold was a lot of fun. I hadn't gotten my hands dirty like that in a long time. It was quite liberating!

Professor Scott poured in more casting resin into my mold than the other students so it overflowed and created a round base.

The next step in the process was to use the 3D scanner to scan our hand and then clean up our geometry. I choose to use 300 polygons. I wasn't too fond of some areas of the mesh, so I cleaned it up even more and reduced the number of polys down to 191.

Materials
I chose to use the white cardboard because it was the same color as my resin cast and because it would be easier to paint. Professor Scott suggested using white tape to place along all of the edges to cover the numbers and any holes. During the re-topology phase of the project, I purposefully structured the geometry to produce the outline of a heart on the palm of my hand. When taping, I chose to outline the heart geometry in red tape.

Construction
After unrolling everything in Pepakura, I printed the model and pieced it together with my boyfriend at the 3D studio. The assembly process took about 7 hours total. My boyfriend became frustrated during the last couple hours of assembly, not expecting to spend his entire Saturday evening assembling a 4 ft replica of his girlfriend's left hand; however, listening to music, cracking a lot of "hand" puns, and playing around with the materials brought some enjoyment to the tedious process.

 

Brittany Jones: Laser Cut - Tree House Wall Hanging

Concept
"Treehouse Ln" is the name of the street where I spent my childhood. Thus, I am very fond of tree houses and the youthful air about them. My MFA thesis film is about a young girl restoring an outer space themed tree house, so I wanted to create a logo for the film. I sketched this image about a year ago and thought it would be perfect for laser cutting.

Adobe Photoshop/Illustrator Techniques
In Photoshop, I created a 15 x 15 inch custom file at 600 dpi. I connected my Wacom Bamboo tablet to my laptop and began to sketch the tree house design. I used the circle marquee selection tool and filled it in with black paint. Then I made a smaller circle marquee selection inside the first circle and deleted the selection. After that I began painting the tree house, telescope, and comet design. I exported it out as a .png and opened it in Illustrator. Next, I used the Live Trace tool to convert the rasterized image to a vector graphic. I exported the Live Trace selection as a .dxf file, opened it in Rhino, added a couple holes at the top for hanging, and prepared the file for laser cutting.

Materials
I used brown hardboard leftover from my comet waffle lamp for the laser cut.

Brittany Jones: Laser Engrave - Achievement Awards

Concept
This semester I worked a very small part-time job (3.5 hours per week) as an Instructor for a local startup company called Tech EdVentures. I taught three classes: Tiny Tech, Robot Wizards, and a Girls Animation Lab. I had a total of 3 students in my Saturday classes and had the idea to give them achievement awards for completing the courses.

Adobe Photoshop/Illustrator Techniques
In Photoshop, I created a 4 x 6 inch canvas at 300 dpi resolution. Next I copied the Tech EdVentures logo into the file and created the text layers for the achievement awards to include the class name, semester, and students' names. After that I saved the document as a .png and opened it in Illustrator. I exported the selection as a .dxf, imported the .dxf file in Rhino, and prepared the file for laser engraving.

  

Materials

For the material, I used clear acrylic to emulate the laser etched glass awards. In the future, I plan to use vector graphics instead of using a rasterized image.

Brittany Jones: Serial Slice - Dolphin or Whale Tail?

For my serial slicing contour assignment I created the tail of a cetacean dolphin/whale appearing just above the ocean surface. The initial idea of modeling a dolphin spawned from my adolescent memories of visiting my mother every summer when she lived in Panama City Beach, Florida after my parents' divorce. I especially remember a handful of somewhat rare occasions of seeing wild dolphins in the lagoon, creating my own dolphin sand sculptures a couple times when the ocean was full of seaweed, and finally getting to swim with dolphins in Jamaica on a Carnival Cruise excursion after graduating from high school.

I looked up some reference photos of dolphin sculptures, but wasn't quite satisfied with any of them until I came across this photo (below) and was inspired to just create the tail above the surface. 

 

[Image source]

As I modeled the tail, I began to think about more symbolic reasons for modeling only the tail vs. the entire ocean mammal. Besides its simplicity, I recognized the indistinctness of the form. Is it a dolphin tail? Or is it a whale tail? Above I briefly shared my memories from adolescence that relate to dolphins. Below I will share some of my present day experiences that relate to whales...

In my class presentation (before writing this blog post), I likened the tail to the top of an iceberg. We can only see what appears above the surface (when the whale needs to breathe) unless we choose to take the plunge and investigate below the surface. According to this source, "the whale symbolizes emotional creativity, well-being, nurturing as well as emotional depth." To be honest, I have been experiencing a lot of emotional turmoil during the past couple weeks. My MFA thesis project was completely attacked by my team in the same week that I found out that I had a contagious skin infection and accidentally transmitted it to my significant other. The stress became paralyzing, induced a constant bout of anxiety for two days, and caused repressed feelings to surface. It was time to face some of the deeper issues so I sought counsel. The form also represents my current internal battle with how much personal information to disclose outside my innermost circle of trusted family and friends.

So let me ask again, "Is it a dolphin tail? Or is it a whale tail?"

In regard to modeling techniques, I modeled the cetacean tail in Autodesk Maya. I used a cylinder for the base. After deleting the top triangular faces, I extruded the curve several times, scaling it accordingly, and manipulated vertices. Once I was satisfied with the shape of 1/4 of the model, I used the mirror tool to create the form. Then I exported the model as an .obj and imported it to Rhino--where I created a contoured version and prepared it for laser cutting.

For the Keyshot material, I used the light-blue, transparent gemstone material as opposed to a non-transparent colored material. In the coming months, I desire to become more transparent about creating art for therapeutic reasons. All in all, this project was quite liberating. I'm looking forward to expanding upon this theme and creating both meaningful and challenging works of art.

Brittany Jones: 3D Printed Tree House

For my 3D printed object, I wanted to bring one of my virtual beloved 3D models to physical form. For my senior capstone project, I modeled and textured an outer-space themed tree house. The model is now the story-driven centerpiece for my MFA thesis project (visit http://treehouseln.wordpress.com for more information).

I first modeled the tree house in Autodesk Maya. The tree trunk was created using cylinders. I used the extrusion tool, append to polygon tool, and moved/merged vertices a lot throughout the process to create branches. The wall boards were modeled by creating a square shaped panel and using the boolean difference function to make the circular window. The leaves were created by modeling a sphere and manipulating the vertices. Lastly, I imported the model into Rhino and scaled it down to 2.5 inches tall to prepare it for printing.

For the material, I chose a saturated, non-transparent forest green plastic. In a future iteration of this model, I plan to paint the 3D print and add a couple more modeled elements (tree swing using wire and pssibly a 3D printed telescope that I already have designed).

Brittany Jones: Week 02 Duck

For this assignment, I drew inspiration from duck themed soap dishes on Pinterest. First, I followed the duck modeling tutorial. Then I used the difference boolean to create the concave indention that holds the soap. The wings were created using the edit points function and move tool. I created the base by modeling a truncated cone. 

[I will insert material information here once rendered in Keyshot.]

Brittany Jones: Week 02 Flashlight

Light is one of my favorite topics to study since it greatly influences our visual perception. My significant other is currently the Content Engagement Manager for 1000Bulbs.com (an online lightbulb retail company). To help him find unique images to share on the company I browse Pinterest a lot for environment art reference, and frequently come across unique lighting imagery. Due to the size parameters of the model and my affinity toward nautical/ocean themes, I thought a light house would be perfect. I drew inspiration from nautical themed light houses on Pinterest. 

First, I followed the flashlight tutorial to create the base flashlight model (yellow layer). Then I opened the LED_Sleeve_Template.3dm to add on to the model within the size parameters. I used the difference boolean to create the peak-through windows on the tower (truncated cylinder) and spherical indentions at the base. The top of the lighthouse (purple layer) can detach from the hollow body (lavender layer) that holds the flashlight (yellow layer).

[Will insert material information here once rendered in Keyshot.]

Brittany Jones: Week 01 Castle

For my first assignment, I utilized Pinterest and Google Image Search for concept art/photographs (and will most likely do so for following projects). Since I am new to learning Rhino, I wanted to create something simplistic. Many of the castle images that I found were way too complex, until I came across an image of Boldt Castle on Heart Island (one of the Thousand Islands in Alexandria Bay, NY). As a Disney/Fairy tale enthusiast, I was drawn to the storybook design in addition to its petite size. I also liked that it was surrounded by water, since The Little Mermaid is my favorite Disney classic.

In regard to modeling techniques, I first created the solids (cubes, cylinders, cones, truncated cone, and tubes). I manipulated them as needed with the move, copy, scale, and rotate tools. I used the difference boolean to create the window nooks and then modeled cubes to fill in the spaces. The mirror tool was used for the top of the doorway overhang. The wire cut tool was used to remove unnecessary geometry from the underside of the bridges (tubes). And for the flags, I extruded a curve and joined the geometry to create a solid.

While applying materials in Keyshot, I kept in mind the idea of a shiny, Disney princess themed castle model for a young girl. Most girly girls love shades of pink, purple, and blue so I decided to incorporate those colors. I mainly chose the Axalta material shaders since they provided both specular and reflection, giving the model the amount of shine desired for a plastic figurine. For future projects, I plan to experiment with manipulated texture images from the web.