Month: November 2023

For this second project, I had a hard time figuring out exactly what I wanted to make with the new Rhino techniques I had learned. Fortunately for me, I had just finished a painting and I remembered an issue I had.

I’ve never understood why paintbrushes are so skinny. I’m not sure if it’s to cut production costs or if it’s just traditional, but I noticed that I could create a solution. I thought back to when I was in elementary school when the most random things would become trendy. There was a period when pencil grips were all the hype around the schoolyard, and it hit me. I can recreate the concept, but with paintbrushes in mind instead of pencils.

I started with utilizing what we learned in week 8. I figured that for something like a small grip, the best way to make different iterations of the same object would be to adjust the main grip substructure, while keeping the texture more or less the same. In my experience, there was always a variety of shapes in those pencil grips I remembered, so that is the basis I was working towards. The graph mapper served the best in this capacity.

The main challenge for me was probably just making it hollow. Although in hindsight, there was a very simple solution to making it hollow with the shape cutter function.

What I have decided to work on for my final project is a set of flowers. It is mostly common knowledge that roses have thorns, and they are not the only example of a plant with self defense. Nevertheless, we consider flowers to be beautiful. So, to juxtapose this, the data I wish to embed into these flowers are venomous snakebite data. I personally love snakes; I see beauty in their evolution and design as well as in their danger. However, I am in the minority when it comes to this, so displaying data about snakes on something that is more universally loved may help in understanding snakes to be more than what they are feared for. You might say that using bite data is not exactly the best way to do this since that is exactly what everyone fears. I think, however, that it suits the flower concept perfectly. You shouldn’t manhandle flowers or you ruin them. You also shouldn’t touch them if they are dangerous. But they are still beautiful when observed from a distance, regardless of if they are dangerous or not. Snakes to me are very similar. You would never see me handling a cobra, but I still admire their nature. If we looked at snakes the way we looked at flowers with thorns, then maybe we would see a lighter more gracious side to them.

The exercise was pretty easy to follow and we learned another method to making textured surfaces via grasshopper. By using the circle packing function, we can add to an otherwise boring texture.

Following along with the video was mostly easy. The guys in these videos can be a little fast, though. They run through these tutorials as if they are teaching people who are already proficient and completely familiar with the software. Besides that minor thing, it was a useful tutorial.

I can see how this can be applied to a data-displaying object. Imagine different data being represented by different textures, for example. Using this function, you can great gradual and minute changes in surface that are different than if you were to use something like the other functions we have worked with so far in the course. 

This has given me a new angle with which to look at my potential project. As an artist, I am a huge fan of applying texture to augment a piece. With this, I can create something that integrates data through texture.