The Lego Experience without Lego - a 3D Paper Construction
A new week, a new project. Today, we were tasked with making 10 samples of anything with paper, in 10 minutes. So something produced every minute. I found this very difficult and didn’t like the task. However, it was a way of teaching us many paper construction and manipulation methods, by teaching ourselves. I made some strange outcomes: i folded, scrunched, tore etc. IT was a very good way of showing the many ways paper can be used, especially when it was going to be he only medium we will use for the project.
The task we were given was to make a paper construction, that was 3D or wearable - but it had to be 3D. I think it will be a good idea to scratch some ideas down.
How can i combine these ideas?
-big headpiece made out of bone shapes
I thought some sort of skull crown headpiece would be really fun and different, be a challenge too, see how i can manipulate the paper to make these shapes. I thought i would start with some bone reference pictures and some quick sketches to help me visualise the idea better.
I started playing with shapes to make them like bones and thought i got quite a good shape, but they were starting to look like bow ties and more cartoon-ish. I wanted it to look grungy and messy, i was being too clean and precise. I consulted Rachel, she suggested a different technique by scrunching and shaping and using a thinner paper, as the paper I was using was very thick. This worked and I enjoyed the shapes that were coming form this technique they were more natural and like the sketches and references.
I found the most effective way to create the shapes was scrunching the paper and wrapping them in masking paper, this was followed by twisting and curling the paper to make the longer areas. I was content with this technique and found my stride with it and was pumping out the shapes a lot faster.
After making the bone shapes, I needed a way of framing them so they formed a crown shape. They were good shapes but very light and flimsy, so weren’t good foundations for building a crown. I spoke to Sam about what materials would be good to help build a base for the crown and she suggested using metal wiring and bending it into a circle shape. I decided to mould the wire into a circular crown shape, it was sturdy and bendable, which was a big help to support the paper.
To place the paper bone shapes on the crown, I thought about using masking tape to stick the bones, but it would just fall apart after a few seconds. I decided sticking the bones through the metal wire, kept them in their place and they couldn’t go anywhere. i would reinforce some of them with masking tape (this time they didn’t fall apart)
This is the final skull crown modelled on a skull (not real obvs - not a necromancer) I am in love with the way it looks super creepy and horror inspired. I decided to drape some wool thread over it to make it look like it has a veil over it. However, i don’t think this was as effective as i wanted it to be, because it was too far apart. But, it adds to the creepy aesthetic it has.
I really enjoyed this paper construction and the process involved, i had to overcome some very different obstacles and ones i thought i wouldn’t have to deal with especially with a paper medium. It’s all a learning curve and i’m enjoying the process which is the main thing.
UPDATE - THE SKULL CROWN COLLAPSED
The crown crumbled after a while as it was to weak to stand for more than a fw days.
As this happened i thought i would start from scratch and play about with scale for my next construction.
I thought I would go with the cityscape ideas. I decided to make some simple cuboid nets, just to start with some simple building shapes.
I stuck them together with glue and folds, they were sturdy and i tested them by doing keepy uppys cause i was getting stressed and feeling a bit bored, so just thought id experiment with the integrity of them. They were sturdy and strong, so that was the main thing.
I started making more of them and playing with the scale. As well, i wanted to make some more organic shapes and add more curves. I was inspired by the shape of the Gherkin building in London with its curve and point. After talking to Nathan he spoke to me about an artist called Richard Sweeney, who is an expert with paper.
The way he manipulated the paper and shaped it to create the curves was impressive and made me consider how I need to craft my paper to create the curves.
I came up with these shapes and started to composite them on a piece of cardboard. The curved shape i put in the center, as it is the most organic and wanted it to be the focus. It ended up looking like the chrysler building more than the gherkin, but I improvised and moved on.
I decided i would add segments of the skull crown and place them around and draped on the buildings, to kind of break up the uniform and straightness. Letitia explained it like a city of bones from a bird’s eye view, which i liked the idea of that and the way its developed from a bone crown to a bone city.
The base of the cityscape was on a strip of cardboard with folds on either side of the center. This allowed me to fold the structures in on each other which created some interesting dynamics within the construction. It felt reminiscent of the movie - Inception, where all the buildings start folding in on each other. Similarly, Doctor Strange as a similar thing happens in that film too. The cityscape could have had more time spent on it, with crating more organic shapes and diverse building styles. The different sized cuboids look effective but need something more to push through all the straightness.
To finish off the project, we decided to take photos of our construction with the studio with dramatic lighting and dark backdrop. Approaching this was exciting for me, as i was intrigued at how the building would create shadows and how this would affect the construction and give it new depth. I was wondering if the light would make some areas stand out or fade more. As well, manipulating the base and folding it and how this would affect the shadows.
This is the result of the photoshoot, i took a lot of photos but these were my favourite outcomes as i like the way the light is shown and reacted within the images. My favourite image is the last one, I love how each plane of the structures all have different values of light all with shadows that cover the base of the construction. The center structure has a nice gradient of light in the from left to right, which I really enjoy and helps emphasise the dimensions of the structure. The examples here are the printed versions that i have taken photos of again to put on the blog to show as an example, so the quality of them doesn’t look as good here.
Overall, I thought this whole project was very new and challenging in new ways. It made me sit back and think about how i work and the way i approach a media that i find difficult. I also found how going with the flow and just letting things happen is a good way to get a grip of ideas and concepts that come easy to me that i can then concentrate them and dilute them into new ideas. This is what happened here with the folding techniques at the start, that evolved into bones and then into the crown and so on. It’s interesting to see how my brains jumped from a smaller concept to something a lot bigger.
