Sand Castle Video Cabinet and Play Tables

A Great artist once said "Castles made of sand fall in the sea, eventually". I say, not if they're carved from EPS and coated with an isocyanate polyurethane resin...and installed a fair enough distance from the ocean. Immediately upon the completion of the Dolphin Sofa for SFDS, I went to work on these sand castles. While the basic geometry of these pieces seemed simple enough, their textures demanded a lot of time and attention.

Once the basic shapes were assembled, and the television monitor was properly fitted, all 3 pieces required staggered block patterns. This represents a lot more work than many would guess. The patterns were first measured and drafted over the majority of the surfaces. In the case of the tables, all sides required detail, where as the video cabinet has a smooth back. The drafted patterns were then hot scored into the surfaces and all of the pieces were tied together and further textured with joint compound before hard coating and paint treatments were applied.

The play tables center spaces were filled with sand and sea shells and topped with glass and plexi. The video cabinet was not only fitted with a 52"monitor but an Xbox and other ancillary digital goodies. The sunglass on the far end of this shot sport double monitors (the shades were cut on the CNC machine, I merely glued the parts together and rounded the edges). All of the wonderful stools and beach ball chairs were designed and fabricated by SFDS. In the end an incredible childrens play space was created, one that will host and inspire much joy and laughter for many years to come.

I'd like to further thank Eric Winston and SFDS for providing me with and allowing my use of their images of the pieces installed in their intended environments. Every aspect of working with this fine studio was a pleasure and a privilege. I happily look forward to my next projects with them.

Dolphin Sofa

This first image is the Zbrush model rendered with Keyshot. The following 4 images show the 10"long Shapeways SLS 3d print. As you can see, it's a remarkably true to the model. It does however, have a bit of a tooth to it. Shapeways offers this material polished in a tumbler but, that process is reserved for print outs that are 200mm (about 7.5") or, less. 

 Sofas and couches come in all shapes and size but, this was a new one for me. I was contacted by Eric Winston, owner of SFDS, a fantastic, 15,000 square foot scene fabrication/design studio in the heart of Greenpoint Brooklyn. Eric needed among some other wonderful elements, a 10’ long, hand carved dolphin sofa for the Marriott Vacation Club in Newport Coast CA. I jumped at the chance. I’d been wanting to do a crazy sofa for as long as I could remember. I’ve done all sorts of crazy chairs, tables, cabinets and beds for as long as I’ve been sculpting but, in all of the that time, never a sofa. Eric cleared a huge room for me to sculpt it in. His excellent fabrication staff built a hotwire table for me from no more than one of my napkin sketches and boom, it began.

Half way into the carve, Eric's studio was visited by Mario Marsicano from Jellio. I've worked with Jellio on a number of interesting projects. I knew that Eric did projects with Jellio but, I didn't know that the sofa was one of them. There were so many diverse projects going on in the studio at the time, 2 major stage sets, a big job for instagram, giant wooden dinosaur assemblies, all sorts of different furniture designs, as far as I knew I was sculpting Eric and the Marriott. Finding out that this was for Jellio once my hands were already deeply into it was an additional bonus. For more with Jellio, click on the following links.
Gummi King
Ice Cream That You Can Sit On
King Kong

Eric's 5 year old angel, Ella.

 The above images show the sofa from various angles, carved, filled and ready for hard coating. The project progressed at a very fast rate due in largest part to my having figured out the sculpture in Zbrush. I have always done models in the past for larger sculpts. The luxury of doing models in Zbrush, as opposed to a more traditional clay approach is that you end up with a model that is not only more easily editable but, all of my build elevations were derived from it as well. The elevations were simply projected onto the block from different sides and the sculpture was immediately roughed out, top to bottom, side to side, front to back.

An astute eye may notice that the sofa against the grid only measures 9'. In order to increase the seating area, during the projection, the length of the sofa would be stretched to 10'. As a result, everything changed a bit but, all for the better. In a very long career, this was well worth the wait. In the wonderful world of fanciful furniture, this is an example as fabulously fun as you could hope to fathomably find.

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.

Ice Cream that you can sit on

In this illustration the models were not only used as a pre-visual, they served as the parametric files for the robotically carved prototypes of the Gummy Bear and Ice Cream Cone Bar Stool. The table, floor and wall were modeled and poly painted in Zbrush as well, as such they too can be rotated, animated, carved, printed and exist in actual space. 

There is a certain luxury for both me as the sculptor and my client, to see almost exactly what the prototype will look like before it's milled in foam. I added a little grain in Photoshop to mimic the approximate surface of the foam. It's hard to tell at first glance, which is which. For more on this project click HERE.

Giant Gummy Bear

Behold the Giant Golden Gummy Bear in all of his automotive, metallic, clear coated splendor! This blog  entry is dedicated to the process of redesigning an existing icon as a 3d model so that it could be robotically carved and rapid prototyped into actual physical objects in a variety of different sizes. For the "GummyKing's" design history, please click HERE. If you want one or many of these monuments to the great gods of gummalishesness or, it you are in need of a high tech Gummy replacement for your oh so yesterday rubber duck bath toy, check out Jellio.com. For another Jellio project that I had the pleasure of working on, please click HERE. 

For the full New York Times article please click HERE