The Near and Distant Past (The Faceted Form), Duck
Using recycled materials, build the physical construction of a digital relic from your memories. Consider how the content of the physical object may change with the recycled paper material surfaces used; make personal associations to maximize the impact of the construction. I chose to make a life sized duck because in my first week of college, I went to the Duck Pond with my friend and saw an absurd amount of ducks everywhere. The materials that I chose to build it out of were a popcorn box and sketchbook paper, and I laminated the templates I had created in Blender onto these materials to cut out the form. I made the head out of a popcorn box to give it a pop of color like how a mallard looks and then left the body white because I wanted the focus to be the head, which is much more detailed. The physical form took about 5 hours to complete.
Talisman #1, Cat in Moon Ring
Using Autodesk Fusion 360 and the skills learned in class, interpret a personal talisman, good luck charm, or sentimental object that you brought with you to college in digital 3D form. It should be something that you imbue with meaning beyond its direct functional purpose. I chose to make a ring that my boyfriend gave me for our one year anniversary because it represents my promise to him of our future together, and I always wear it. This took about 1 hour to create digitally.
Synthetic Talisman, Lucky Cat of Love and Protection
You will synthesize your ideas by combining your multiple talismans into a single new design that serves a new purpose, such as warding off curses or attracting blessings. I used Autodesk Fusion 360 to create 4 separate talismans and then combined aspects of them into one talisman of my own. The talismans that are represented in my synthetic talisman are a personal good luck charm: my anniversary ring, a family talisman: a dinosaur stuffed animal, a historic talisman: the Japanese Maneki Neko, and a stranger's talisman: an ornate dagger. I decided to use the cat as the base, put the ring on it's coin, spines on its back, and made it holding the dagger as a shortsword. It is meant to attract love and protection to the owner, which is written in Japanese on the coin. I rendered the 3D model by adding different materials and colors digitally in Autodesk. I then exported it to Ultimaker's Cura to 3D print my talisman, and it was printed in glow-in-the-dark plastic material and painted with acrylic paint. This project was completed over a few weeks, but probably took about 7 hours total.
Gravity Lantern, Lotus
Create an illuminated, suspended three dimensional lantern that responds to the term 'gravity'. Use bamboo skewers, tracing paper, hot glue, needle-nose pliers, etc. to build a lantern that is able to hang from LED lights in the workroom. The lotus flower (aka water lily) is an aquatic plant that sits on the surface of a pond and its roots latch into mud on the bottom. It is known for it's spiritual purity, so I chose to make a glowing, levitating lotus with the light in the center. I bent some skewers by soaking them in boiling water and taping them in a curved position until they dried. I then carefully measured each petal and cut them out of tracing paper and glued each layer on similarly curved skewers so that my lotus would be balanced. There is a cylinder on the inside of the flower with skewers arranged so that it hangs on the lightbulb without visible suspension. The roots are detachable and hang from the bottom of the lotus by inserting it into the cylinder. I completed this project in about 6 hours, aside from letting the skewers dry.
