Sculpture + Design

Jill's Butterfly Jigsaw Puzzle

• initial ideation sketch, digital mockup, and final wooden toy
• made of recycled scrap wood

 

2D to 3D Cutout Excercise For Design Students

I created this excercise in 2014 to:

• help students practice cutting and scoring paper with care and precision (cut lines, fold lines, tabs, and slots)
• encourage students to think about various ways of creating 3D form from 2D
• allow the students to have a *Eureka!* moment and appreciate how abstraction and obfuscation can be used in 2D / 3D (the center turns into the word YES).

Olivia's Tron Light-Cycle Ride-On Toy

• made of scrap wood, casters, and paint
• a bit of the design process showing consideration for aesthetics, functionality, ergonomics, and fun
• initial ideation sketches, fabrication steps, mockup, final paint, and ready for play!

Drawing Tablet Holder

• PETG plastic heat moulded and attached to my desk for quck and easy access to my drawing tablet

Ambidextrous Hand Mannequin

• ideation (pencil sketches) and final design (scrap wood and elastic cord)
• the robot-styled hand model is easily manipulated and convertable from right to left by rotating the proximal finger segments
• all digits have realistic range of motion so the hand can be put into almost any conformation
• joint construction was insprired by the colourful connected-blocks toy shown below
• built as a demonstration piece for Design students.

 

 

Laser Cutting

• pieces created using vector illustration, and laser cut out of hobby quality plywood at various intensities

Outdoor Social Space Composition Figure

• raster and vector diagram using callouts to suggest the the relation and relative scaling of 3 maquettes: a landscaped outdoor social space, a wooden bench, and a water feature.

Cubic Sculpture 3

• wooden sculpture that is fun to look at because it challenges perception - when turned even slightly, it's hard to recognize it as the same object
• mostly created as one long squared-off snake of wood, that when held, almost seems to defy gravity

click to view movie

"Super Laser" Sailboat Design

• a bit of the design process
• vector illustration, paper prototype, clay hull form, balsa wood skeleton
• plans show the parts required to make the sailboat's form and key parts
• rollover plans to see workflow

cutting and backing parts onto bristol paper

paper form

packing the paper prototype form in clay

- I used 2x lamination so the parts stay together better until they're encased in clay

hours later... symmetry checked and edges smoothed - hull's form is complete

building the balsa parts from the vector plans

closeup showing how to pin wood

- always dry fit the pieces before gluing

- ensure it lays flat

curved spine

- the spine is constructed from 6 pieces which are later sanded to a smooth round curve

- ensure the ends are cut and sanded nicely before gluing to ensure the spine is as strong as possible

removing a part

sanding

- flat side, round corner

making the wood skeleton

mast is held firmly between ribs 4 & 5

wood and clay forms

vacuform testing the heating time with Petg plastic on various materials with different textures

- air pockets cause puffing

- metal causes loss of detail because the plastic seens to cool quickly before sucking into the details

- some plastics melt when the heated Petg contacts them

another coat of clay to make it perfect

done

darn it

fixed with plaster

vacuformed hull

new balsa skeleton

all parts

- the magnets on the hull, keel, skeleton, and rudder aid in assembly and hold the boat together

sailboat assembled

- sail is light-weight and adjustable

- sail+mast+boom are removable

- adjustable rudder that stays where you angle it

- balsa skeleton and keel are held firmly to hull with magnets

Cubic Sculpture 1

• 3 different views of a wooden sculpture

Cubic Sculpture 2

• 9 views of the same wooden sculpture
• plays with challenging viewer perception by varying the perspective and context

Arc Side Table

• built out of plywood and pine

Playhouse

• built out of scrap wood and an old skylight
• the cedar roof is sealed, and the runoff helps water the plants

Character modelling (and mods)

Miniatures repaints and modelling

• eg. Archangel (shown right) metal-looking wings carved, model taken apart, resculpted, detailed, and painted

Anita Action Figure

• original "Bratz" doll was personalized and repackaged
• several small parts were created including mini-Biology exam papers with questions and answers to mark (several different exams put into mini-folder), mini-pen, mini-bound books, and mini-Dunlop squash raquet with authentic colouring and design - wrapped handel, stringing, and overall identical to Anita's actual raquet
• some signs changed to reflect that it's now the "Anita" doll.

Wind And Water Kinetic Sculpture Demonstration Piece

• built out of scrap wood, old CDs, and skateboard bearings
• a demonstration piece for students showing how various materials can be used to make a waterwheel and fan blades to catch different types of energy and convert it to another form
• it also shows the correct way to construct a cam and follower mechanism
• the fan part is supposed to resemble a flower with leaves below, while the half-sun shape goes up and down with a slight wobble as the waterwheel catches water and converts it to up/down movement via the cam and follower mechanism..

Timberwolf

• built out of toothpicks and plastic glue (when I was about 16)
• the torso is positionable, and the missile coming out has a wispy smoke trail
• inspired by a robot from the game "Battletech"

... the inspiration