Week 4

Last week I really struggled with the 3d modeling, so during the Thanksgiving break I spent lots of time re-figuring out my concept. I realized that the human forms in my ideas were giving me a lot of grief with modeling, and I tried to print a couple times with very bad result, despite spending lots of time sectioning off my models to make them easier to print.

I decided to opt for something simpler in the interest of time.

I went to the New York Aquarium on Coney Island on Friday and saw this beautiful white shark. Since my original sculpt idea was a hellish mermaid creature, I thought a shark would be a good alternative to build up my modeling practice. Using Nomad3D (I'm still determined to make this software work for me!!), I built out a simple shark toy. I wasn't trying to copy the shark entirely, but I did use the general shape in order to get something that looked nice and organic.

I would love to print this as a clear hollow shell so I can put "trash and debris" inside to represent the trash in the ocean that fish and sharks inevitably swallow. First steps first though.

I decided to print the fins separately because I thought it would be easier. Unfortunately for me, I didn't realize that 3D printing doesn't print very accurately. The perfect holes I had modeled for the detachable fins did not translate to the print, and I spent a lot of time stabbing myself with an Xacto blade as I tried to whittle out to fit the fins. Maybe the finless shark toy could represent the sharks killed by shark finning?