Intro to 3D Design
I took intro to 3D design way later than I was supposed to in my college career. I took this class summer going into my 5th year of college. I didn’t follow the typical path I was (supposed) to follow. In this class we got to work with foam board, wood, yupo paper and rhino, and finally, needle felting. This class was way smaller than classes typically are (due to it being during summer) but it allowed me to really understand the processes I was doing and get one on one help when I needed it.
Project 1: Column
At the beginning of this project I really struggled to come up with an idea. I was originally interested in a hexagonal shape but that was too hard to keep even so I went with a pentagon because I could make the form out of simple triangles. I also originally wanted my form to be closed but I ran out of time. I really enjoyed this first project and it was a challenge. I did struggle with keeping my work super clean and the lines super straight. I didn’t realize how hard it is to make things exact. I am happy with how my work came out though, it came out better than I expected.
Project 2: Wood
I think that this was the project I was most nervous about because I have very limited experience with power tools and the idea of them just tends to make me nervous. Our prompt for this project was “movement” and it had to be abstract and I struggle to come up with ideas for abstract art pieces because I have a very literal mind. I decided to base my piece off of helicopter seeds and I wanted my piece to have literal movement to it because I was struggling with the idea of implied movement. I really enjoyed using the bandsaw and I used that to cut my helicopter seeds and I was surprised at how easy it is to use power tools. My instructor helped me come up with the idea for the helicopter seeds being attached to curved reeds to help with implied movement and that definitely helped me a lot. I do think I could have focused on the base of my piece because it really is just there to hold the reeds so I could have given it some more attention.
Project 3: Yupo & Rhino
At the beginning, this project was the one I was the least excited about. I hate working on the computer and especially with software. Rhino is something that many people I know use in their creative practice but I never tried it because it looked too intimidating. Our prompt for this was biophilia (“a hypothetical human tendency to interact or be closely associated with other forms of life in nature” Merriam-Webster Dictionary) and it was to be abstract again. While I did not succeed in making something abstract, I am really proud of my forms and specifically my sewing. I liked using yupo paper because of the texture and it gave me the opportunity to use the laser printer which was super cool. I also chose to do 3 different forms of the same idea to mess with proportions and altering my forms on rhino depending on the size of them. I ended up enjoying this process more than I thought I would and now I feel more confident in using rhino to create ideas for my own practice.
Project 4: Needle Felting
This was the project I was most looking forward to! I have always wanted to learn about needle felting but had never had the opportunity or the urge to buy the supplies myself. I really enjoyed going to the IU biology greenhouse to get inspiration for our monsters. I pulled the shape of my little guy and colors from what I saw in the greenhouse. This process took a lot longer than I expected it would. I built up the form pretty fast but the color took way longer than I was expecting. I also didn’t anticipate struggling to make the little details as much as I would but those were definitely the hardest part. I am going to continue to do needle felting in my free time because I really enjoyed it!
