Process Blog
Cyron and I decided on recreating the Ocarina of Time from the video game of the same name for our first project. As it is a hollow object it will be necessary to create two sides of it and glue them together. It could also be possible to print locking joints but since the Ocarina is a type of whistle, the glue will hold it together better and, hopefully, make it sound okay.
The Ocarina of Time
In Why Design matters, Alain de Botton argues that good design makes people better and that people have emotional attachments and aversions based on the looks and feel of things. Good design can take many forms: sups, phones, sunglasses, and even the small dongles and knobs attached to everyday objects. Unfortunately, bad design is even more common.
Take the design of Colorado cities. I hate them. They popped up overnight and had a checklist to fill out. Houses. Check. Schools. Check. A place to get necessities. Check. But they lack character. The houses are all the same. You must drive everywhere. The schools look like prisons. I could take a picture in any one of these pop-up towns and you couldn’t tell me where it was taken. Everything in it looks the same. On a surface level, though there are changes, the color might change from one corporate approved color to the next but the urban planners at these development companies must be alcoholics because they are forced to create such unfriendly cities.
Now take a city with good design. Take Barcelona. Each city district has a crossroads dedicated to commerce and pedestrian walkways to make each district more livable. The intersections are also more open to allow for café seating and, on occasion, are closed to cars. The city is livable and thriving as it was designed not despite it, like what we have in Colorado.
I have always like modern teapots to the point that whenever I am in New York I will go to the Met to see the teapots. I selected the modern one because of its relative simplicity and functionality.
A modern teapot
I created a modernist teapot for practice with Fusion 360. The spout presented a challenge as creating the end was harder than I initially thought. Fusion 360 is built like an Apple product by prioritizing slick design over usability and using a cloud-based rendering engine. Despite the drawbacks, I believe the teapot looks functional.
Final Render of Teapot
I read Paul Kirchner’s “The Bus” a while back and was inspired by how he was able to write a whole comic series using only a few characters and no dialogue. The book was quirky and surreal. I really liked it, particularly this self-referential one here:
I also needed something to craft The Bus into. I am not a material person so just a model of the bus was not going to cut it for me. I decided on a water bottle top as it is both functional and novel, without adding extra weight.
The modeling was a bit harder with the bus given the number of parts needed to create an accurate bus. The windshield, in particular, was challenging as it was curved in an organic fashion and simple cylinders would not work. Unfortunately, I was unable to find the specifications for the screw lid for my specific bottle and had to approximate.
Paul Kirchner’s “The Bus” and the 1970 GMC Suburban Charter were my inspiration
First round of bottle top sketches
Process Images and a few final renders