Jason skill log 2: Sculpting

What I Learned

I was working on the 3D model of our tree stump this week and oh boy, blender is really fun. I hadn’t ever used a 3D sculpting before this week and as such spent a good chunk of time just figuring out the basics. I am very much a learn by doing person so I found a youtube video for beginners and started experimenting with the basics demonstrated in it. I have quite a bit of experience with regular CAD programs and pencil art along with some digital art so the interface wasn’t too hard to learn but I was completely new the actual sculpting process and so spent a good deal of time experimenting with what looked good and how the various tools interacted with the digital clay.

Artifacts of learning

This was the video I found most helpful and referenced the most when sculpting.

This was the first experiment I did in blender so its pretty simple

What I Made

As I was working on the model of our tree stump this week most of the work I did was in blender and with a little bit of 3d printing. Working in blender was really hard at first but after a few hours of modeling I had the interface and basics down enough that I could really focus on the artistic side rather than the technical and ended up making 2 tree trunk models for us to consider. I only ended up printing one of them but both models are fully complete and I will be printing the other one at full size to be a part of our prototype next week.

Artifacts of what I made

This is the first of the two models I made and is a bit more simple than the other one. Its also the one I had time to print

This is the second model I made and by this point my skills hade advanced a lot so its much more intricate.

Tying this back to class

Sculpture has been a form of art basically since dawn of human civilization and has always been changing as our culture evolved. This form of sculpting is really just the evolution of this art form into our modern digital environment and is a great example of how technology can influence art and vice versa. For our project we are aiming for something that looks natural with an artificial twist and so a 3D sculpted and printed model was a natural way to go as I can make it organic looking while easily incorporating more technological design elements like the cube structure of the first model.