Animal Project Pt. 1: 3D Model
objective: Research and select an endangered or extinct animal from the part of the world where you grew up. Use found and reclaimed packaging plastic containers you’ve collected to create your animal.
02.24.21 | Initial Research & Story
Since I’m originally from Washington State, specifically Seattle, I decided to choose a killer whale, as there are various groups of Killer Whales that are native to Washington, as well as several other groups that migrate in and out of Washington from along the Pacific Coast, all the way from Alaska, down to Antarctica. After doing more research, I found that they mostly reside in the Puget Sound, which was the body of water right along where I grew up. As a kid, my family and I would occasionally take a trip to Orcas Island along the coast of Washington and go whale watching, so I’ve seen then swimming in their natural habitats before. I’ve also seen orcas as a child at SeaWorld, which I‘ve since learned is completely unethical company and I’ve educated myself on how they mistreat the orcas.
This page from my sketchbook lays out the some of the research I did on the structure and color of the orca’s body, as well as some information on where they are from, their migration patterns, and why they are extinct. I found out that they are extinct mostly due to pollution in the water, and starvation. Their main food source, the chinook salmon, which also live along the coast of Washington, are becoming extinct due to pollution and overfishing. Because of this, the whales are having a harder time finding food, and are becoming extinct as well. I decided to include these pieces of information in my story as well, but specifically from a female whale’s perspective. Female whales are having an especially difficult time with the lack of food, as they often have unsuccessful pregnancies or die from nutritional stress during their pregnancies.
02.28.21 | Initial Model
I started out with the minimal plastic that I had, which mostly consisted of takeout food containers that I had been saving for a couple weeks. I created a pretty stylized version of an orca. I focused on getting the main aspects of the animal, including the rounded mouth, the bulbous shaped body and its tail, and I exaggerated those features a lot.
I realized after making it that it looked more like a cartoon/toy version of the actual animal, but I think that making this version gave me a better sense of how I wanted to actually make my model. I realize now that I need to make sure the body is elongated and that it curves that the bottom and the top. I’ve looked at pictures of other whales and I realized that orcas are actually much more similar to dolphins in their structure. While whales are more flat, dolphins are have more bulbous heads and their bodies are a lot more rounded.
03.03.21 | Second Iteration
For my second iteration, I decided to include my interaction in the body instead, which I realized I could do by separating the top part of the body from the bottom part and then connecting them with brads that would be able to move. I went dumpster diving so I managed to find more plastic that matched the scale that I wanted to make my model. I found some black plastic planters that are used for potted plants and some white detergent bottles and the shape of those worked well for the underside of the body. I used varying sizes of plastic to create the rounded top that the orcas have.
03.07.21 | Final Model
After my discussion in class with Daphne and with the TAs I got the feedback that the body isn’t as representative of an orca as it could be.I noticed that although it did look like an orca when it was curved upwards, it did look quite flat when it was sitting on a surface, rather than looked more rounded. So I decided to use bigger pieces to make the top curve upwards more and I took out one the white middle sections so that the body would be more condensed because I had also previously gotten advice that the body seemed to long like a white and not as short and compact like a dolphin or an orca.
For the interactions, I stuck with the movement in the body as well as adding movement in the tail so that it moved up and down to mimic how orca’s tail would move when it’s swimming
There were a few more small changes that I made to made my model more accurate to actual animal. Another thing I changed the fin. I realized that the placement of the fin was a little off in my first model, as was the size. I moved it further back onto a different piece and I made sure that the whale could still have the same interaction of moving upward without the fun getting in the way. I also made the white eye patch much smaller, as I realized it was unproportionally big in my previous iteration.
Finally, I refined it a little by switching out the gold brads on top for black brads, so that there wouldn't be any confusion of which ones were supposed to represent the eyes and I left those gold. I also cleaned up the edges of the plastic by curving them and making sure there were any pieces that were cut weirdly.
Interaction videos:
