Paper craft prototype

For our next major milestone project we are creating paper craft using Rhino 6 and the laser cutter.

Originally I was planning on making a cat because I'm a cat person and I have two cats of my own. Turns out making a 3D cat that doesn't use any round lines from scratch is not easy. I decided to think of something that would work well simplified and is symmetrical. Working off the idea of cats I thought of how cats like fish, and then the idea of a paper sculpt that has movement like Li Hongbo's work and also a weaving papercraft done by Harrison S (a student in a previous year) might be possible with the fish concept. 

Paper craft made by Harrison S.

Li Hongbo and his flexible paper sculpture

I decided to achieve movement in my paper craft, the fish would have to be made up by smaller pieces interlocking with one another like a spine. But then I realized why not just create a fish skeleton since a spine is what I'm trying to make. With a solid idea I started designing the fish ribs and how it can interlock with one another.

I came up with a structure of the rib that would have a hook that can go into a hole on the back of the skull and each rib. All I had to do after that is just copy the rib couple times and then modify the shape of the last one on the chain to be shaped like a tail fin.

After that I unfolded the model out so it would be ready to be printed out. The unfolding part was pretty tricky because there is a balance of making sure the pieces don't overlap each other when unfolded, make the unfolded pieces not spread out in a weird shape that would create empty spaces wasting paper and thinking about where the seam lines should be so it is hidden in a spot that isn't as noticeable. 

  

All that was left after printing was cutting, scoring and gluing the pieces together. The prototype turned out pretty well, there are some things that I will need to adjust before it is ready to go to the laser cutter. look forward to the next blog for the updated design!

Papercraft research

   

     The Artist and their work that inspired me the most was the wet fold origami pieces by Hoang Tien Quyet. He uses sheets of paper and water to fold the sheet to create organic smooth three dimensional sculptures.

     The technique used by Hoang Tien Quyet is a derivative of classical orgiami folding. In basic origami, the artist uses one sheet of  square paper  to fold in to a sculpture without the use of cutting or gluing the paper. The method used by Hoang is called wet fold origami, which requires the artist to use water and dampen the paper when folding allowing more organic bends in the paper and holding its shape when the paper dries. Wet fold origami requires thicker paper compared to the thinner paper usually used in normal origami because the thicker paper does not tear when handled wet.

     The wet fold origami technique used by Hoang was first created by Akira Yoshizawa. Akira Yoshizawa is "considered the grandmaster of origami" he wrote 18 books and has had international exhibitions show casing his origami art, he turned the craft of origami into a recognized art form. The person that had introduced Hoang to the art form was Giang Dinh.  He is also  known for his wet fold origami pieces. All three artists use the wet fold origami to make their works but they all have distinct styles and subjects they seem to perfer. Akira Yoshizawa is the creator of the technique and is the first one to experiment with it so the sculptures are more simple. Giang Dinh seems to create more human subjects and faces, where as Hoang Tien Quyet has applied the techniques of his masters and has created works that focus on animals and their delicate shapes.

Akira Yoshizawa and his wet fold origami pieces

Giang Dinh's wet fold origami "lovers"

Giang Dinh's wet fold origami "nude back"

      The reason Hoang's work inspired me is because it made me rethink the whole art form of origami. I've made simple origami cranes and such before but what I never really liked about the art form is the limited shapes the paper could make. Paper can only fold it's shape if it is folded, stuck together by some kind of adhesive or from the friction between the papers. These limitations would only allow origami to have sharp geometric shapes, with the end products usually being an interpretation of the subject in paper form rather than a sculpture of the subject on paper form. Seeing the possibility of  how just adding water can change the art form and give so much life to the sculptures amazes me. Wet fold origami has given me a different perspective on how a single sheet of paper can be used to make art.

3D scan and cleaning up

I decided to scan a paper crane for this side project.

There was a lot of unnecessary things that I needed to remove.

Here is the model with all the unnecessary things removed.

This is after cleaning up in meshmixer. This was definitely hard to clean up. Creating straight geometric shapes when the scan made all the sharp edges round was very challenging. If I was to do this again I would choose an object that was more organic and round.

This is the model imported into rhino 6 to surface model, light and rendered.

Mile stone 1 HD render

This week we are finally finishing up our first milestone project. We started this week with a new program call Rhinoceros 6. I really enjoyed the UI of this program, it was easy to pick up and the command bar was very useful. After importing all my models from Meshmixer, I added on surfaces on each model then lights to illuminate the scene. Then started the process of rendering, the long long wait of each render to finish.

bonus: failed render