Friend poses for the Mad Hatter. Hundreds of photographs are used as reference. Later, mom’s chair is scanned.
July 19, 2015
“Begin at the beginning,” the King said, very gravely, “and go on till you come to the end: then stop.”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
I reported in the last post on the Mad Hatter Tea party project that the project actually began 3 years ago. Things may look like they are now moving slowly in the studio, but, there is so much work going on by many people concerning this project from all over the World. In the overall picture we are way ahead of the game.
√ Digital designs approved by client
√ Photo sittings with Alice and the Mad Hatter
√ Collect other reference material.
√ Maquettes sculpted
√ Maquettes (small clay sculptures) scanned using the Next Engine laser scanner, revised in the computer and sent to CNC Milling Companies.
– IN PROGRESS
1. Maquettes enlarged- Updates on these very soon, they are at Synappys Digital Services in Oklahoma and Across the Board in Canada. They should start coming into the studio in about 7 days.
2. I am purchasing materials and get the studio ready. We may just have a very special company helping me to “set the table for the most creative dining experience.” More on this soon to come.
3. Hire on interns and get them ready.
Each character and the very large table will need a rolling base. Though this part is simple designing these bases so they are structurally sound is very important.
The studio will soon become very crowded. I can visualize how crowded by seeing the bases that are being built by my incredible son-in-law and resident handy man Bill Sizemore. I love that “family” energy is all over this project. Before anything can be sculpted- rolling bases must be made. Each of the pieces the table, the March Hare, Alice, The Mad Hatter, the pedestal and every bench must have a rolling base so that the I and my interns can roll them into place, work on them ,and then roll them to get them out of the way again. The studio is small and it will be close quarters as interns maneuver around art.
Welcome Johannes Huber to the team. Johannes is a digital artist using ZBrush. I’m going to count on Johannes a lot in the up and coming months. There are many different hidden objects that I have created or am creating digitally that will be in the scenes. I will count on Johannes, to either rough in a design or clean up my designs as I move through creating 150 elements in the scene. Most of those things will be for 3D printing. However, Johannes has a
Evan Lee of Super Solid 3D scanned both the baby and the chair using the Artec structured light scanners.
very big part of the project right now. He is helping me with the Mad Hatter’s chair. Remember I’m writing a book on the creating of the Alice Project. It is similar to my book 3D Technology in Fine Art and Craft: Exploring 3D Printing, Scanning, Sculpting and Milling
The Mad Hatter’s Chair.
Scan and obj from the Artec Scanner. This was scanned from Bridgette Mongeon’s sculpture of her granddaughter. She will take the sculpture, reduce it down and 3D print it to use it as one of the 150 hidden items in the story. The crying baby turns into a pig in the story of Alice in Wonderland.
As you can see in the original photo shoot of the mad hatter, the chair is tipped. I decided to use a chair that was my mother’s and have it scanned. Digital Designer Evan Lee from Super Solid 3D came to my studio and scanned my chair using a Artec Eva and Artec Spider structured light scanners as well as a few other things for the Alice project. Evan needed to try out the scanner as he is working with The Center for Advanced Computing and Data Systems (CACDS) at the University of Houston (UH). They use the Artec 3D scanners to work in collaboration with local museums and UH art historians for research into new data and computational techniques in the study of art. I was delighted that Evan wanted to try it out on the alice pieces. This scanner certainly will help the pieces change shape. I guess you can say in my story Alice and her friends change shape digitally instead of using alixers and mushrooms.
I have never seen this scanner work and it was good to get to see the results. Now we must make that scan workable and make it our own. Johannes will help me with the digital file. The chair will eventually go for CNC milling on A CarveWright Machine. I can’t wait to show this process, as I’m very intrigued with the CarveWright. I featured it in my previous book and am thrilled that it will become a major tutorial.
