In this project, we explored how 3D forms are constructed and how to use abstraction effectively. to do this, we recreated a seashell and computer mouse out of various additive and subtractive mediums. Finally, we created a “hybrid form” that combined the essence of both objects.
Section 1: Natural Form
The first part of this project involved capturing the form of a seashell through additive and subtractive mediums. I chose to sculpt with a bar of soap and plasticine clay. Both mediums were physically easy to manipulate and could be sculpted using similar tools — the key difference being that the soap was solely a subtractive medium, while the clay could be additive as well.
Soap (Iteration 1):
Although I had never carved soap before this project, the experience I had with other subtractive materials such as foam helped me get to grips with this new medium quickly.
The Irish Spring soap I used was perfectly sized for a 1:1 model of my shell; while this made working off of the shell easier, it also meant that I couldn’t scale the shell up to make carving fine details easier.
I started modeling by tracing a rough outline of the shell lightly into the soap with an Xacto knife. I did the same for the front, back, and side views of the shell.From there, I used a box cutter and the Xacto knife to cut the bar of shop in the shape of the outline. I repeated this process for each of the 3 axes of the shell to form a rough approximation of the shell’s volume. After I got this rough shape, I used metal clay tools to refine the form and add details where I wanted.
My goals for this iteration were:
- Convey the shell’s texture but slightly abstract it
- include some indication of the line of holes spiraling out of the top of the shell
What Worked:
- I was able to capture the proportions of the shell relatively accurately.
- The planar structure of the shell was revealed due to the level of abstraction I used.
- Replicating the holes in the shell proved that I could still add in fine details if needed.
What didn’t:
- Brightly colored and textured soap is hard to photograph. I will use a neutral colored soap next iteration show that the structure of my model is easier to understand through photos.
- The overall texture of this iteration felt unpolished, almost chiseled, which detracted from the smooth form of the shell.
- There was very little representation of the bottom spiral of the shell, since I carved in too deep several times and was afraid of breaking my model by hollowing it out too much.
Soap (Iteration 2)
For my next iteration, I revisited my design choices with regards to the feedback I received on my first shell iteration and decided to focus on the following points:
- Conveying the direction of the spiral instead of the natural texture.
- Remove details and emphasize the curved planes on the side of the shell.
- Represent the spiral on the underside of the shell.
For this iteration, I used a white bar of soap. Unfortunately, due to panic about the coronavirus, all stores near me were sold out of soap, with the one exception being the Dollar Tree. So, even though I was able to find a bar of soap that was neutral-colored and very inexpensive, I paid the price in said bar being extremely flaky and harder to sculpt with than the almost buttery Irish Spring bar. However, I remembered that my professors and TA suggested to use water to smooth out the surface of soap fresh after carving or during carving, and I decided to use that technique to make carving the surface easier and less risky.
At this stage, I had carved out most of the top planar surfaces and had planned to represent the row of holes / vents on the shell’s surface by adding bumps on the surface(something Q suggested I try). I had just started working on the underside as well.
After working at this stage of my 2nd iteration, I realized that it would be very difficult to represent the shell’s line of holes to scale given how brittle this bar of soap was. Because of this, the bumps dominated underlying planes and contours of the shell and detracted from the overall form. Therefore, I decided not to include them and instead focus on conveying the clockwise direction of the spiral of the shell.
At the top surface of my model, I carved in a few subtle curves to show this directionality of the shell. Even though the actual shell was completely smooth in this area, I felt that this lines could convey movement which was more important to understanding the form than a completely accurate representation. I also slightly hollowed out the bottom of the model to show the spiral underneath the shell, a subdominant feature.
Clay (Iteration 1)
The second material I chose to render the shell with was plasticine clay. This type of clay is non-drying and easy to manipulate, without having to worry about cracking due to the clay drying out. However, it is heat-sensitive and often becomes too soft to sculpt after a while.
With the clay, I started out with a very similar process as the soap. First, I cut off a block of clay with the rough length, width, and height of the shell itself. I used an Xacto knife to trim this block into the rough volume of the shell by tracing profiles of the top, sides, front and back onto each respective side of the clay block and cutting appropriately. Then to refine details and features I used clay tools and my fingers to smooth out the surface of the model. Finally, compared to sculpting with soap, I was able to add clay onto this volume to model features such as the top of the spiral and the line of holes instead of just subtracting material.
With the clay model, my focus was slightly different than the soap model. Given that clay is more forgiving due to it allow for both additive and subtractive modeling, I was able to model details such as the raised line of holes to a realistic degree, whereas with soap, such details would detract from the overall form due to limitations with subtractive sculpting and the nature of the soap bar itself. I was also able to experiment with varying levels of abstraction and adding or subtracting features to convey movement and subdominant forms within the shell.
Section 2: Artificial Form
Transitioning away from the natural seashell, we were then asked to model a computer mouse using the same or different materials as we used for the shell. Given the ergonomic, sculpted form of a mouse in comparison to the irregular surface and details in a shell, I wanted to capture the movement of planes across the form and omit details to emphasize the subtle nuances of these planes.
Paper (Iteration 1)
I chose to work with multimedia paper as a substitute to Bristol paper since I was working at home instead of the studio. This paper is lightly textured but not detracting and has a 140lb paper weight, comparable or thicker than most Bristol papers.
With the first iteration of my paper mouse model, I wanted to try different techniques more than get a completely accurate representation of the model, since I had never 3D modeled with paper before and wasn’t sure what the limitations of it as a medium. My process for this first iteration was to first sketch out the mouse to understand how the major planes on the surface moved along the form. Sketching out orthographic views helped me out when cutting cross sections of the mouse out of paper (for future reference, the length of the mouse will be the x-axis, the height will be the y-axis and the width will be the z-axis).
My first attempt at the model was a grid of x- and z- cross sections (looking directly at the sides of mouse, not the top). For this iteration, I started with the center section of both x- and z- axes and built outwards, eyeballing the other cross sections as I cut out each one. Since my reference mouse also flared outwards at the top for an ergonomic grip, I experimented with angling the outer x-sections. After finishing this grid model, I wanted to try capturing the top and side surfaces of the mouse instead of just the volume, leading me to experiment with curved sheets of paper on top of the model. I found that the paper surfaces didn’t fit the overall volumetric theme of a grid-based model and decided not to pursue this idea any further.
During in class crit, I received the following feedback on this iteration:
- There were not enough cross sections to understand the volume of the model, especially in the front and back.
- Certain elements of the mouse, such as some of the x-sections, were not accurate to the model and may need to be reworked.
- The angled sections, while communicative of how the mouse flares out, may need to have a softer transition.
Paper (Iteration 2)
Taking the above feedback in mind, I worked off of my first iteration model, adding an angled z-section towards the back as well as a front and back section based on the top view of the mouse.
The extra pieces definitely helped communicate the volume of the mouse better, especially the flat pieces at the front and back that helped tie the vertical x-sections together in a gradual curve. However, the model lacked cohesion, such as the front flat piece which ended in a curve, as compared to the back flat piece that ended in a flat edge. Representation of the side of the mouse without the aggressive flare was also lacking, and I planned to address that with the next iteration.
Paper (Iteration 3)
With this final iteration, I revised my method to improve the accuracy of my model greatly and worked on the cohesion of individual paper pieces to the model as a whole. Instead of eyeballing cross sections based on the actual mouse, I took “orthographic” pictures of the mouse and added a grid on top of each view to help myself understand what part of the mouse each cross section should be based on. These were transferred onto a separate document that was printed out as final templates for my iteration.
While cutting my Illustrator templates out onto the multimedia paper, I immediately noticed a step up in refinement of each cutout. Since I had done all the tracing digitally, my cuts were more confident and the curves of each piece relative to each other were very consistent, aiding the overall perception of volume and even an indication of complex curved surfaces. However, I also immediately realized that my process was flawed for certain elements of my model.
I had to estimate the shape of angled sections since tracing over orthographic views would only be accurate for sections that were flat against the camera. In the picture in the right above, I struggled to attach the frontmost x-section until reading up on how a classmate tackled this issue with hidden tabs.
In hindsight, meticulously tracing each section digitally was not an efficient way of modeling the mouse out of paper. Although this method dramatically refined my model, the subtle nuances between each profile that I tried to replicate digitally didn’t translate as well in the context of the lattice model. I ended up having to trim most of the pieces by hand to emphasize certain contours and lines and even had to make some from scratch. Some of my classmates experimented with curved sheets of paper to capture angled curves on their mice among other styles of modeling, some of which I felt would have worked well given the form of my own mouse. Time constraints held me back from trying these techniques, but if I were to redo this section I would have experimented more early on instead of taking a long time with the final.
Clay (Iteration 1)
When rendering my mouse out of clay, I had to change my process as I was quickly running out of clay. I started out with a cardboard core and built on top of it rather than starting with a block of clay and carving into it.
Since the cardboard was only a base for the clay, it was not built to proportion. This unfortunately impacted my judgement of the actual proportions of the mouse. After I considered the clay model to be “finished” I left it for about a day, came back to it and realized where the proportions went wrong.
It was clear the front of the model sloped downwards too fast compared to the actual mouse, so I placed the clay in fridge to firm it up before adding clay onto the front.
At this stage, I tried my best to smooth out the surfaces of the model before considering it to be finished. Although I initially omitted the scroll wheel on purpose to emphasize the top plane of the mouse, I decided to add it so the model would read quickly as a mouse and not just an abstract form. Given more time, I would have liked to fully smooth out the surface of my model, would have chosen a different clay is this one was just too soft to create polished surfaces.
Hybrid Form
Our final task was to combine the characteristics of our chosen mice and shells into a “hybrid” form. When comparing the sketches I made of each object, I noticed that the mouse and shell were actually very similar to each other at a general level: both had a generally rounded shape, asymmetrical surfaces, and defined planar surfaces transitioning from the top to the bottom.
Our professors showed us a method to develop the characteristics of our hybrid form: a word blending exercise. I made a word map of characteristics and elements of my shell (top) and mouse (bottom), highlighting words that were either unique to each form or shared by both.
The final words I chose are above: the ones highlighted in blue are shell characteristics, the orange are mouse characteristics, and words with both colors are shared characteristics.
With my chosen words in mind, I started out by sketching speedforms and incorporating key lines and/or surfaces in these quick sketches. For ideas that I though had potential, I made additional sketches in perspective to check if my orthographic sketches would hold up in an actual 3D form. Using these sketches as a reference, I made a couple of rough minis to test these ideas in real life:
I best described the first mini as the shell on top of the mouse. This idea drew key surfaces and elements from the shell and mouse and literally combined them into one form. In other words, I focused on the physical forms of each object instead of their verbal characteristics.
With the second mini, I focused on the written characteristics rather than the form of each object. I used the mouse and shell as an inspiration for the hybrid form but did not derive any of the elements in this mini directly off of the original objects. For example, the shell I used had a creased spiral running around the underside of the shell; I used this element as inspiration for the large looping concavity in the mini.
In class crit, both my professors and classmates preferred the second mini over the first. One of the TAs suggested that the first word I chose for my mini, “respirate”, didn’t have to be taken literally (referring to the holes in the shell that I included in the first mini). I made a change to the word:
respirate → airy
Thinking about the shell less literally as a breathing object but rather a light, delicate object, helped me understand what I was looking to achieve with my form. Having the word in my mind allowed me to tweak the proportions in my final object to express this characteristic.
With the final model, I started with a volume of clay and subtracted from it, much like I did with the shell clay model. I had to destroy one of my minis and scale down the final version a little in order to have enough clay, but not having a core freed my modeling by not restricting me to a minimum size or underlying shape I had to work over.
Reflection
Although I felt that my technical modeling skills improved as a result of this project, it opened me up to what it means to truly understand a form and how to use abstraction and unique properties of certain media to express subtleties in surfaces, contours, and overall feeling of an object. At first, I felt that making several iterations of each object in several materials seemed redundant until I started ideating my hybrid form. It became apparent that studying the nuances of each form as closely as we did helped me quickly connect similarities between manmade and natural objects and allowed me capture the essence of both objects into one.
Our class worked on this project from home during a particularly hectic time, many of us leaving our supplies back at school. It amazes me how easily we were able to adapt to our new situation and produce work that equalled, if not exceeded, the quality we reached in our studio.
