I thought the vehicle workshop project was over. I thought I was free. I was wrong.
We got set another task for it on Monday. Admittedly, however, it was a ridiculously fun project, and when we were set it in the morning I was raring to go and headed straight off to get started. The brief was to take our vehicle designs that we had created during our 2D workshop and translate it into a physical model, made of whatever we chose. My reaction to this was to sit in my seat and kinda bob up and down like an excited puppy, or a small child. From the university art shop I grabbed some gum tape and 3 A1 sheets of cardboard. This is what came of it;
I’ve made a cardboard model using gumtape before (see below), for A-Level, so I felt confident about using these materials for this task. I knew I would enjoy it.
When working with such a stubborn material it’s difficult to work on a reasonably small scale, hence my model is pretty monsterous in size and lacks general detail. I think if I had had more time for this project, I could have spent forever getting down to the nitty-gritty of details such as rivets and the feathers.
Modelling started out with the body, then the head, bottom wing set, tail, and top wing set. Because the body is round in shape, potential difficulties were presented, but I actually did myself quite a big favour by making the vehicle out of overlapping and interlocking plates rather than one big smooth surface. This meant I could just make different sized rings, fit them inside eachother, and gumtape them together. As a result, the model has actually ended up really quite strong throughout. The main point of weakness is the bottom set of wings, on which all of the vehicle’s weight rests. When put on a smooth surface it would simply slip into a painful looking splits, but was actually fine on carpet so I knew it was just the joint of the wing and body that was the issue. I tried to stabilise it with tape and more card, but still it slipped. In the end I used a string of wire between the two wings to hold them together, stopping them slipping apart so that there was a good strong base for the model to rest on.
The back spine area was also a difficult one, as I didn’t really have time to properly model each rib out of proper rounded rings of card. Instead I had to leave the ribs as flat pieces of card that are quite flimsy, and simply attach them as firmly as possible. Each rib has wire running through it on both sides for additional support, and it looks pretty cool too. Ideally I would have liked to go back and slide tiny cardboard rings onto the ribs to make them more solid and realistic.
Overall I’m really pleased with my final result and loved the project. Was a great change from pencil drawing or 3D modelling, and part of me misses my messy fine-art side. You should have seen the state of my room.
The Attempted Game Art of ANYA THE ARTIST 