Category: Project 3 Presentation

3.4.2 Fabrication Final

I chose the gray filament due to its warm tone and professional appearance, which resembles a prototype. The lighter color allowed small details, such as the scale texture to be seen easily without appearing strange. I felt that the white was too bright and would be difficult to keep clean, while the black would lose most of the details brought to life by the light color palate.

In the end, my project ended up at about 40 grams due to the inherent fragility of the necks. To support these, I used a thicker filament than typical, which made processing more time-consuming, but the project is stable.

In general, the entire concept of a reptilian creature is surreal. By using a plant model for the head, the small craters add another dimension of strangeness: are they eyes or deformities? Furthermore, the neck appears very thin and winding in a way only seen in snakes, giving it an illusion of motion. With this, one would think that gravity would be the enemy of this creature. In By changing the scale of the head non-uniformly in regards to the neck, I was able to create an impossible dimension biologically.

The Boolean operations were probably the most time-consuming aspect of this project, as each section had to be saved as an obj file and exported into Fusion 360 separately. Fortunately, when objects are imported directly, they retain their position in every axis. From there, I was able to combine join everything into one one body.

Sources:

Alligator Model- Thingiverse

Note: Model is under Creative Commons and is non-commercial

3.3 Design Final

Referencing the absurdity of Through the Looking Glass by Louis Carrol, I begin with two dissimilar objects that had complimenting features. Using the “found object” method, I obtain the main body of the model, an alligator, from Thingverse, and the head and neck from my 3d digitizer scan of a Mario piranha plant. In order to simplify and clean the mesh, I smooth all of the teeth, providing a smooth surface, which minimizes the mass of the model. In addition, I scale the neck non-uniformly, and rotate it, creating a organic appearance. Similarly, I scale the head to an appropriate size before duplicating both the neck and head. To provide a more realistic appearance, I carefully angle each of the heads separately, making sure to line up the edge of the neck with the splice in the head, ensuring a watertight mesh. Once I am satisfied with their positioning, I import each section into Fusion 360 individually and use a Boolean command to combine them into one body.

To create interesting shapes in the final project, I employ the use of many visual principles throughout the design. Utilizing the concept of unity, I smooth the vertebrae on the neck, originally meant as a skeleton, in order to match the scaly texture of the alligator. By matching a tall, winding structure such as the neck with a the short, stocky body of an alligator, I am able to balance the features.

Sources:

Visual Principles

Metaphors to Sculpture

3.3.2 Design Iteration

Changing course from my original design, I decided to instead create a serpent monster. In my initial plans, I had wanted to create a three-headed creature emerging from an egg. Due to the smaller body mass and balance generated from the alligator model, I elected to only add two heads. This decision also impacted the orientation of the model, as it as originally going to lay sideways. Overall, though I am extremely satisfied with the final model.

This model was an extremely challenging and time-consuming project. In it, I incorporated several different .obj files from various sources. The body of the monster came from an alligator file I found on Thingverse by tomil 1. In preparation, I removed the head and made the new object solid, giving it a uniform shape. The heads and neck originated from my own scan on the digitizer. I elected to smooth out the inside of the mouth, removing the teeth, as well as the errors across the surface. The neck was established using a similar process, carefully selecting an even portion. This was also separated and made solid, while the remaining mesh was deleted. The head was appended to the alligator file and duplicated (top image). The neck was also duplicated after it was scaled to an appropriate size.

Once I had the base model established, I worked on refinement and placing the pieces together in a logical way. First, the stump of the alligator was smoothed out, creating a bulbous surface to attach the necks to. Each neck was then aligned on the body and the bottom sections of each were smoothed out, creating a smooth transition. Once each of the separate sections were established, I saved each one as a separate .obj file and, one-by-one, imported them into Fusion. From there, the bodies were combined into one and reuploaded as an obj file to be sent to the 3D Printer.

Sources:

Alligator Base: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1357078

3.3.1 Design Concept

 

In my original concept, I envisioned a scene similar to Louise Bourgeois’s “Untitled (With Hand), in which a snake-like creature is emerging from an egg. To keep the design from becoming too simplified, my idea is use the original model as a basis for the many hinges and movable parts, which will be created in Fusion. After reviewing my colleagues’ digital scans, I determined that the apple is most closest to my preferred concept. Once all of the mechanics are established, I also thought it would be fun to duplicate the final result a couple of times, though, to do this, I plan to go back and recreate the final result, without using the copy function. With this in place, I would like to adjust the position of each neck to be unique and appear more organic overall.

Because much of the design involves precision, I decided to remove the teeth of the figure in Meshmixer, and add them back in through Fusion. This is because the wrong length or position of the teeth may interfere in the objects ability to close properly. In addition, I have to clean up other small details, such as the crevice where the two halves meet in the back of the head, in Fusion. When I print this, I plan on reducing the amount of overhang by printing the object sideways, so the snakes are at the top. Overall, I think this will be a fun and challenging project, but I am prepared to change some details if needed.

Resources Used:

Apple

http://newmediawiki.pbworks.com/w/page/134937144/planeToVolumeBooleans 

http://newmediawiki.pbworks.com/w/page/127738215/planeToVolumeLookingGlassÂ