Return to Kong

Cragged ivory, chipped and scathed emerges from gums both shrinking and swollen  to divinely dapple divided luminance upon engorged papillae or,... dig the shadows across the tongue. In this return to a long waiting model, I've changed it quite a bit for 3d print out. In the same way that Photoshop's paint is forever wet on demand, sculptures of a digital nature are forever pliant. In order to achieve a 9 inch tall print out, the mesh required being broken into 2 parts. A 4 inch base will be printed seperately and effectively raise the print out to more than a foot in height.

I'm going to be doing a lot of this in my quest to find the outer limits of what the Makerbot can do in the way creating larger models.

Jellio Logo and Frame, Zbrush Model, MakerBot Prints

Last year, I had the opportunity to create a gummy bear model for Jellio, a wonderful company that sells some very groovy things. The model that I created was initially designed to serve as the tool path for a 4 foot tall roboticaly carved gummy bear that was sent to Maaco for a glossy, gold automotive paint job. Thought the model was designed for that lovely prop, it has found it's way into numerous iterations in a variety of scales and applications. I've recently learned that the model will be used once again...for something bigger still. The pleasure of that said news set me dreaming.

The Jellio logo is a little treasure in and of it's self. Every time that I've seen it, I've imagined it inflated, weightlessly hovering as if it were full of helium, just barely touching the ground with the lower apex of J's curly que. It has a playfully timeless air to it much in the same way that the original Coca Cola logo does. The lovely thing about having a 3d printer is that you can have that imagined shape, physically in your hand in very little time. Once the Logo Zbrush model was completed and the mesh was processed into a tool path, the 6 inch by 9 inch prototype was printed in 14 hours 48 minutes. The model was developed and processed for print in a day, the next morning when I woke, my MakerBot greeted me with the prototype. It's was sculpted while I slept.

It was so pleasing to see the Logo in actual space, I had a need to see it re-applied and incorporated into a gummy bear theme. Having seen how well the little gummy bear model had served so many different scales for different products, I knew that what ever I designed within it's theme would work the same way. At first I imagined this as an eight foot tall trade show display but, as the design evolved I realize that it could serve any number applications from free standing picture frames to wall mounted mirror with the base serving as an integrated shelf. Of course round designs naturally lend them selves to clocks and egg timers. How cool would this be as and egg timer with the Jellio logo on its nob, flanked by Gummy Bear salt and pepper shakers. Architecture is where these shapes really get fun. Who doesn't love a beautiful occulous? Is there anyone out there who wouldn't want to live with a giant round window in their space? In building this 6 inch by 7 inch prototype which took 11 hours and 55 minutes, I immediately envisioned it on top of candy columns. I would be quite the grand entrance.

Penny Throne, Sculpture Chairs, Zbrush Models, MakerBot Prints

I've often been asked about the prices of my chairs. Generally my answer has been "a lot", the reason being that they are all hand carved and, carving is more work than most people whom haven't carved understand. I've never really been happy with that answer and wondered what if they were modeled in Zbrush and roboticaly carved? These models represent the first printed foray into exploring that question. With the exception of The Penny Throne's tiniest offspring, nestled safely in it's lap, all of these prints are approximately 6 inches tall. The large Penny Throne was printed at medium resolution without a raft or support. It took 8 hours and 43 minutes to print. It's baby was printed at high resolution and took 3 hours and 55 minutes.

The 3 Sculpture Chairs pictured below were processed and printed at the same time. The group resulted in a rafted and supported single, high resolution print that required 36 hours to complete or, about 12 hours a piece.

Jeff Koons Rabbit Experiments

Above, Makerbot prints of Zbrush model

I've been studying a lot of my favorite modern masters lately, Pablo Picasso, Joan Miro, Jean Arp and Constantin Brancusi. In so doing, I found my way to Jeff Koons, Damien Hirst and Paul McCarthy. Iconoclasts, all. In this study of Jeff Koons Rabbit I've found parallels between all of the above mentioned in terms of surface development, rhythm, volumes and underlying order. In the deformations, I am not only finding basic abstractions through twisting both acute and gentle velocities but, re-contextualize the object from what it is at it's core, a manifestation of Marcel Duchamp's "ready made" and bringing it to a more seemingly organic realm. As the reflections of Jeff and a collage of his painting swirl within the surfaces, their subjects too are trans-morphed into something that to me seems more of a chaotic organic dance out of a static origin. Of course, this effect is achieved though a very anti chaotic geometric order. Perhaps it's needless to say that this is a project that took on a life of it's own. Jeff Koon's Rabbit has somehow become one of the great art icons of my generation, Ironically, it's derived from among the cheapest of Chinese Mylar trinkets. Despite that, it has an industrial art deco sleekness to it that is executed with a Rolls Royce fit and finish.

It started as a simple modeling exercise but, as I created the reflections it began to occur to me that this might yield a new take on portraiture. For another video in which Jeff slides from one shape's surface to another within his notorious master work, please click HERE

Ceramic shape studies

Some of the earliest artifacts left by man have been clay pots. They mark the beginning of civilization and stand as a testament to man's constant quest for industry and technology. As such I thought that this would be a good exercise, not so much for turning shapes as these are all fairly elemental but, more for extracting shells with determined wall thicknesses for the purpose of manufacturing. I also wanted to explore the use of gray scaled photographs as alpha masks through which I could extract mesh and raise the brick and weathered wood textures in order to contrast the smoothness of the ceramic. Further experiments with deformations led to near hallucinatory variants.

MakerBot and Me

I've recently purchased MakerBot's Replicator 2. I've followed MakerBot's progress for a number of years. I was always fascinated by it but, never overly impressed by the crudeness of it's output's striations. As soon as I learned that the resolution has increased many fold, I bought one. "Pull it out of the box and watch the magic happen" has not quite been my experience so far but, I am beginning to figure it out and my prints are getting better. June will mark 2 years of  my sculpting inside of the computer. As a result I have a lot of models that have only seen the virtual light of day, It's my hope by this purchase that I will soon be printing models daily. For large and or more detailed models and sculpture, I will still need the services of my extraordinary vendor, his monster Zprinter and his 7 axis carving robot but, for smaller, faster proof of concept models this desktop 3d printer should prove very useful.