D4M Week Three Check-In

It’s about three weeks into this project now, and I’ve settled on which idea I’ll be continuing with.

Due to the relative ease and speed I can make the butterflies, they are the obvious choice.  It takes an average of 2.5 minutes to make one out of a 3″ square piece of paper.  Of course time varies depending on material and size.  A Reese’s Miniatures wrapper takes roughly a minute to fold, but a 16.5″ square of Reynolds Wrap Heavy Duty Aluminum Foil takes about 15 minutes to size, cut, and fold.

Promised Labor Day Weekend Post

(In my opinion, posting something before my first class this week still counts as posting during Labor Day Weekend.)

 

I’ll be kicking off this week with a handful of assignments for different classes.  In my Design for Media class I have a choice of either a Human as Landscape assignment, or a Menagerie assignment.  I’m strongly leaning towards the Menagerie.

The project’s parameters call for a series of objects or figures related by theme, color, and design.  It has a chance to be much more illustrative than the more abstract concept of a figure as a landscape.  I already have a few ideas for this.

 

For my first idea, I’ll tell you a little story:  when I was about 10 or so years old, my parents got me a book called “Origami Made Easy”.  I took it with me everywhere and worked hard to make the pieces look perfect.  I was only good at a select few; one of them was a butterfly.  The book is most likely stowed away in a closet some where, but I still have the butterfly memorized.  Over the years when I was bored in school I would make butterflies out of anything paperlike: old tests, candy bar wrappers, scraps of Christmas present wrapping paper, etc.  I think I once made a butterfly out of a 1-inch square piece of paper.

Something I really love about this idea is that I can make these butterflies out of any type of paper, so size is something I can really explore. I have gift wrap at my dorm, and I really want to see how large a butterfly I can make.  There’s also a stack of magazines and newspapers that I’ve been keeping for a project like this.  The idea of scrap pieces of paper, basically trash, being turned into something beautiful like a butterfly is really appealing to me.

 

I do have another direction I’d like to go in, but it’s not as fleshed out as my butterfly idea.  I was really inspired by the example of menagerie in Mac George’s and Hans Barber’s blog, the image titled “Red’s Studio – Equipment”. I’d like to explore the concept of what my studio would look like as an animator.  There’s something very appealing in the lines of this style that I find inspiring.  It actually reminds me of Disney’s 101 Dalmations to be honest.  This assignment could be a great way for me to explore what I need or will use as an animator.

 

I’m really looking forward to this project.  I think it’s going to turn out pretty great.