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. 

Clay Purdy Week 12: Pepakura Creature

Concept: For my creature I combined a snow leopard and a horned owl to create an Owl Griffin. I like the beefy sturdy legs and thick tail that snow leopards have and wanted to incorporate that into my design. I also took inspiration from this old ceramic black panther sculpture my grandmother has in her house, I've always liked the fluidity of the piece and wanted to try and imitate it.

Techniques: I sculpted the model in Mudbox. I made the head, body, legs and tail separately, each starting out as spheres. I mirrored the front legs, then slightly altered one using the freeze tool to mask off areas on the part then the grab tool to change its pose, I did the same thing for the back legs. In Rhino, I boolean union-ed all the parts together then used the reduce mesh tool in Maya to fine tone the low poly look.

Materials: In Keyshot, I used a rough textured metal material. I used the curvature texture on top of that to add the highlights on the high points or "positive curves" of the model. I wanted to piece to looked like a buffed back, patinated bronze. I think the piece has a very brutalistic style to it, so I set it in an open, grey industrial wear house.

For our actual piece, my group chose Hunter's Duckaroo. We found that the piece had a clean design and came off as very displayable with its three points of contact base. We also found the piece to be really funny looking and thought it would be cool to see it on a large scale.

Hunter modeled the piece and both Zach and Hunter worked on getting ready for and running through the laser cutter. We all came together to assemble the separate larger pieces using loctite. I took those larger pieces home and worked on the larger assembly, post processing and surface application. 

During the building process, we filled the tail, feet and legs with expanding insulation foam to give the piece more stability. To finish the piece, I coated the entire thing in masking tape, starting with the edges then filling in the wholes. I did this to seal the cardboard and also create texture with the folds and wrinkles in the tape. Once the pieces were sealed, I coated them in a black spray on primer to prep the surface to be painted with acrylic paint and to seal it even further. After that, I applied a dark green base layer of paint and started to assemble the lager pieces into one. A challenge arose at this point with the larger pieces not quite fitting together perfectly. All the different little flaps being glued together just slightly off allowed for enough variance in shape on the larger scale creating gaps between pieces. I managed to cover the gaps using tape though. I used multiple layers of paint, varying in tint and hue, to give the surface more depth. To finish it off, I used metalic gold paint and a dry brush technique to hit the high points of the surfaces to give it a buffed, patinated bronze look.

 

Sheena Meany Week 12 Final Project: Pepakura

Original 3D Model: Pengwhale (Penguin and whale hybrid creature)

Concept

For this project, I knew I wanted to do a hybrid animal since it is much easier to create something with some basis in reality. I was inspired by the photoshopped image of an orca and a penguin which is what became the base for my project. 

Techniques

For my model, I used Maya 2019 to create it due to it being an organic creature. I started my model with a Polygon Cube, extruding it out then using the Smooth command to create the rough shape of the creature. I then used the Extrude command to create the wings and eye shape. For the mouth, I used the Boolean Difference command to cut a hole in the mouth. I only worked on one half of the creature in order to save time, and after finishing one half, used the Symmetry command to mirror it to the other half. After completing the model, I used the Reduce command to "reduce" the polycount level to make it easier for the Pepakura program to run. 

Materials

In order to create the base colors for the texture of the creature, I UV mapped it accordingly so I could texture the creature accordingly to the colors I wanted. I then assigned the creature a plastic texture, in order to emulate the cardboard used in the final Pepakura project. I chose a winter background as both animals live in cold environments, so it would be the most fitting for the creature. 

Final Pepakura Group Project: Pengwhale

    My design was chosen for the final project due to its simplicity and most structurally sound. It is titled "I now realize why Steve Buscemi was terrified of his abominations in Spy Kids 2". Since other designs would not have been able to stand on their own without additional support, mine was chosen on that aspect. Since it was a crossover between a whale and a penguin, there were many other routes of inspiration we could add to the design to elevate it. Ultimately, we decided to give it a nest of sorts with sticks and eggs, and other things you would normally find in a bird's nest. Another is that the design of the creature is inviting to an audience, with an open mouth and round body, giving it an opportunity to attract others to itself. 

    Responsibilities were divided upon ourselves equally, depending on time constraints and our own individual strengths. Logan was primarily in charge of the entire post-production process but helped in other aspects as well during building. He also designed and modeled the nest shape, and prepared it for laser cutting. Aidan assisted in preparing files for laser cutting, as we had several pages to cut for our creature. He also helped organize the project workflow, as well as troubleshooting during the building process of our creature. I assisted in operating the laser cutter and learning how it works, which was something I was not expecting in this class, but more than happy to learn. After all the pieces were printed, I built out a majority of the creature's shape, then we combined efforts to do finishing touches for the general shape until it went to post-production. 

    We endured many difficulties during this project, one being the laser machine on campus being down. Since the laser bed off-campus was a different size, all our pieces had to be cut down piece by piece in order to fit this new laser bed. Another issue was that we had many missing pieces, such as one eye, which went to the post-production department. In doing so, the penguin had a new unique design to it as a "pirate", which brought more attention to the eyepatch itself which was unexpected. 

Anthony Lopez: Week 11 Deck Laser Engraving

CONCEPT

I took my original drawing which was the ASL spelling for “LOVE” and I scanned it with my phone using Adobe Scan. Then I inserted it into Adobe Capture which allowed me to alter the original design into a sophisticated pattern. Inspired by patterns revolving around repeating diamonds or stars I sought to create an elegant pattern that was clean and timeless.

TECHNIQUES

I imported the design into Illustrator and used image trace to get a product I could work with in Rhino. However when I imported that file into rhino the curves it gave me were way too close to each other for the main hexagon shapes. This meant that if I tried to laser cut it the curves would have overlapped with each other and it would not have been pretty. So I used the explode command to try and separate the curves of the hexagon so that instead of a curve and a stroke it would be just the curve. Unfortunately this did not work so I decided that I would trace the shapes manually. 

I then began to trace one hexagon and one star with the line command. Then for the ovals surrounding those two I used the curve command to trace the oval shapes. After that I copy/pasted the set of shapes and used the move tool to move them to the location represented in the original design. I used the hatch command to create the raster of the stars.

MATERIALS

The post processing consisted of painting the stars that were the rasters hatched into the deck. Each was painted different colors and I used acrylic paint.