week two tasks

Three further developed creatures:

 Petal:
I tried to make this creature more something abstranct than a "monster". I hid all of the required parts in the base of the flower. These included the mouth and eyes. Of all my creatures, I like this one the most, probably because it's different. For it's environment, I wanted to do something like make it live in a huge pot plant, with soil on the roof where it could sit and catch the sun.

Snowflake:
When I was making this creature, I had an icy environment in mind, so I gave it thick armor on it's back, and a blue colour scheme to blend in with the snow.

Stingy:
I'm not sure what I was trying to do with this creature, it just sort of came together. I figured out how to get rid of the limit on the number of parts you could use to build the creature, so that allowed me to completely cover it with spikes, which I thought was pretty fun to do. The environment I had in mind for this creature was a huge, sandy desert. I didn't end up chosing this creature to give an environment, so that idea never went any further.

Pairings:
Number 1:
Words:
Raised, secluded, safe, rotund, unreachable, solitude, supported, layered, covered, segmented

 Number 2:
Words:
Linear, structured, white, cold, stark, high, sharp, blending, jutting, contrast

Preliminary Sketches:

Pair 1:
For this environment and structure, I had in mind a forest, with pot plant like structures supported on tree trunks and in the branches. These are multi story structures, with dirt roofs where the creature can catch the sun. The buildings will all be linked together by wooden bridges spanning between the trees.

Outside sketch

 My idea is to have a colony of these little houses inside a forest, all connected by bridges.

 Floor plan of first level

 Floor plan of second level

3D modelled views:
Outside, showing the entrance and the dirt roof, accessable by stairs.

 Front on view

 Section showing the two levels, staircases and railing on the roof.

 top down section of first floor.

 looking down inside from the roof.

 second floor staircase.

 Outside with a balcony and tree supporting the structure.

 section through the building, with the tree in place.

Pair 2:
This environment is a snowy, wasteland area. The creature lives in a huge, open spaced cave inside a mountain. Inside, the cave is full of stalectites, while outside there are fields of snow and a frozen lake.
The cave itself has a few balcony like levels jutting out of the rock face which the creatures can inhabit.

Sketches:
Looking outside from the cavern

 The general idea of the levels, covered in stalectites.

 Outside view of the environment. The cave entrance in the side of the mountain, and the frozen lake at the bottom of a small cliff.

3D models:
inside the cave.

 section of the levels.

 Outside the cave entrance.

 section through the mountain.

week 1: folding and modelling

The designer I chose as my inspiration for the paper folding task was John Graham Jr. He's most notable for his (sometimes disputed) design of the Seattle Space Needle, but he has also worked on many projects, including high rise office buildings, government buildings and hotels. As an interesting side note, he holds the patent for the design of spinning top sections to towers, most commonly used as revolving resaurants.

The thing that got me interested in John Graham Jr was a lego architecture model of the Space Needle I was given as a gift from an uncle earlier this year. I collected a lot of lego as a kid, but this was by far the coolest lego thing I ever had.

So of course one of the buildings I used as inspiration for my paper folding was the Seattle Space Needle:

This is my folded paper model for the Needle:

And this is my 3D model of it, done in Google Sketchup:

The second building I used as inspiration was the Chase Tower, in Rochester NY. I used this because of the stripped pattern that runs along it, as I thought that would transition well onto a paper model.

With my paper model, I focused on the image of the lines running up the building, as well as the slight curve at the very bottom. On paper, this translated into a series of raised lines, which curved as they met the bulk of the paper.

Spore Creature Creator:
These are the three creatures I made using the Spore Creature Creator program.

The first one is just a simple bird.

 The second creature is meant to be something like the giant Sarlacc from Star Wars (a big spiky mouth in the sand). I was watching Star Wars at the time and thought it would be fun to try and make it.

 The third creature is a dragon type monster. I had trouble making a tail, but I think it looks ferocious enough without one.