Represent and construct a chosen animal form transforming found̾ reclaimed packaging material into an interactive model .
2.25.21
Kemp’s Ridley Sea Turtle
I chose the Kemp’s Ridley Sea Turtle because I think translating the shell that it has into a 3D form will be interesting to attempt.
Story:
From researching my animal to write the story, I learned that they go to lay their eggs in Texas beaches every 1 to 3 years and that they always travel in groups. Because turtles do not have teeth, they depend on their beak to break down food.
What are your animal’s special traits or behaviors?
It has a triangular-shaped head with a slightly hooked beak. Hatchlings are darkly colored on both sides. Adults are generally a grayish-green color on top with a pale yellowish bottom shell. It is considered the smallest marine turtle in the world measuring 2 feet in length.
What factors led to the animal’s extinction or endangered status?
- Entanglement in shrimp trawlers and human activities
- Marine debris
- Chemical pollution
- Habitat degradation and loss
The physical characteristics of the turtle that I noticed while drawing was the the shell has a pointy end and has a slight bump in the upper area. Something I also noticed was that the front flippers are relatively long and if they were pushed back , it would be approximately half of the shell.
When annotating a picture of the top of the turtle, I noticed that the head is relatively triangular and so is the back flipper. I also took note of where each part of the turtle was in relation to each other. The front flipper is almost as long as the shell but not quite, and the width of the shell is almost equivalent to the length of the shell from the armpit of the flipper to the top of the back flipper. From the annotations of the photo, I got a better understanding of the form of my turtle and now I just need to collect and find plastic that fits the form correctly.
03.02.21
With this first iteration , I tried to find similar materials to the turtle, but I didn’t try too much to find the exact pieces just yet because I wasn’t sure if my approach was exactly the right one. However, I do think that the model can be read as a turtle, just one that is anatomically and proportionally not exactly correct. I only used tape to connect the different parts together because I knew that it was not worth it to spend time figuring out how to connect them on my first iteration.
Body
For the body of my turtle, I used a laundry detergent bottle and turned it upside down to have more of a curvature to the shell. I kept the neck and pour spout of the bottle attached to the shell because from looking at pictures, the turtle has a pointed end. I do think however that because the end tapers so quickly and is so drastically different in size from the rest of the body, it doesn’t look like it is part of the shell.
Head
For a while, I struggled with finding a piece for the head of my turtle because it is rather long and small, but I eventually found a small laundry detergent bottle that I think could be understood as the head. I cut it in a way so that the corner of the bottle would serve as the nose and connection to the mouth, but I think that it is too sharp. What the head actually sits on is the spout and neck of a laundry detergent bottle that I cut out and attached to the bottom of the other laundry detergent bottle that serves as the body of the turtle.
Flippers
For the flippers, I used Sprite bottles that I cut in half and taped to the body. I think that it can be interpreted as a flipper, but it is not the right size and shape of my specific turtle. I think that it is too big and too straight. In reality, the flippers are closer to the body and not as far stretched out as I have it. Right now, I am not sure if the curvature of the bottle is enough to convey volume of the flipper or if I should find plastic that is full and is not just half cut.
Overall, I think that I have a lot to work on because this first iteration does not look much like the reference images of my specific turtle. Fixing the proportions can help with this, but also finding plastic that looks like the different parts of my turtle.
How to Improve:
- Looking back at my reference pictures and drawings, I realized that the turtle’s body is not comprised of its shell, they body is protected by the shell, this means that I have to make a shell that will cover the body, not make a shell that will be the body.
- The head and neck is not as extended out from the body like I had previously, so I need to move it closer.
- Look at proportions of the turtle. In this first iteration, I did not look too closely at the proportions, I just found plastic pieces that I thought would work for each part of the turtle and cut the size and shape, but I did not keep in mind how each part would look together, so I need to study the proportions and different parts of the turtle again.
- Make the arms and legs of the turtle opaque, the difference between the opaque and somewhat transparent plastic is not good. It may be difficult for viewers to figure out the form quickly and precisely.
From class today, I realized that the communication of form is much more difficult than I thought. The translation of the turtle into physical form should all be resolved at the same level of detail. When one part of the model has more detail than another, it detracts the viewer and makes them only look at one part instead of the entire model as a whole. I think that this is true for my first iteration because the head and neck of my turtle is more established and can be easily read as a head because of its shape and because of the brads I used to represent the eyes. So when someone looks at my model, they immediately point out the head and eyes and only examine that part rather than looking at the rest of the body and flippers.
Another thing that was mentioned during class was that you want the viewer to see the form over the details so it is important not to focus too much into the details because if the form is not correct, it doesn’t matter how detailed the model is, people will not be able to tell what the animal is and cannot make out the actual shapes which defeats the purpose of creating a model in the first place. From this, I think that I need to study the Kemp’s Ridley turtle more to fully understand how each part works together to create the whole.
03.04.21
Shell and Body
To make the shell of this turtle, I cut a laundry detergent bottle in half along the seam and because there was a cut out for the handle, I had to cut that half into another half and tape the two halves together to create a whole new shell. Margot mentioned that a turtle is not entirely comprised of its shell, a head, and limbs, there is also a body underneath the shell that is fleshy. In my first iteration, I did not have this and it was just the shell, so it did not really look anatomically correct. With the addition of a smaller laundry detergent bottle underneath the shell that I made, I think it adds the fleshy part of the body that I was missing beforehand. It obviously is still hard plastic, but because it is smaller and taller than the shell, it works to visually create the difference between the shell and the body.
Flippers
In class, Q mentioned to someone that having a mix of opaque and slightly translucent plastic is jarring. The flippers in my first iteration were made of translucent Sprite bottles which does not clearly communicate form well because you can see through it. The shape also wasn’t completely correct because it just stuck straight out from the body. With this iteration of the flippers, I cut the corners of a large laundry detergent bottle and cut it to the shape of the flippers. The form of the corner works to add more volume to the flipper instead of being just a straight piece of plastic.
Head
The head is made out of the corner of a laundry detergent and I decided to keep the same head because for right now, it is relatively the same size and correct proportion to the rest of the body of the turtle and I can’t really seem to find any pieces that completely portray the form of the turtle’s head closer than what I have now. Because I changed the body and shell for this iteration, I had to come up with a new way to connect the head to the body. To do this, I cut out the spout of the laundry detergent bottle I used for the body and moved it to the front and connected the head on there using hot glue. I think that it doesn’t work perfectly because there is a slight gap where the head connects but for right now, it is good enough to convey the form of the head and viewers can quickly understand that the head is connected to a neck that is connected to the body.
How to Improve:
- Something that I know I have to work on is the joint that connects the flipper to the turtle. Currently, I have the flippers connected straight to the shell of the turtle but in reality, it should be connected to the fleshy body.
- I also have yet to think of an interaction for my turtle. I want the flippers the move in the way that it moves when the turtle is swimming but I first have to establish a joint of some sort to be able to facilitate that movement.
Q’s Critique:
Q mentioned a lot of things that I wanted to work on with my next iteration. I knew that the front flipper did not connect to the turtle in the correct way but he also mentioned how the head and neck is not very accurate of the turtle.The neck is a curved shape that connects the head to the top of the shell, and currently, my turtle’s head simply protrudes from the body without any curvature. He also pointed out how the shell of the turtle is more pointed and less flat. With these notes, I think that I will mainly work on the arm connection to the body and try to find a piece that will fit properly into the neck. He also said that right now, it looks rather simple because there are so few parts that comprise of the whole. It is essentially just the body, shell, flippers, and head. There aren’t really any joints that connect the pieces together, they are just glued in place. I think I need to work on finding or creating connections for my turtle so that each piece flows into one another which I think will also help it look less simple. Another thing that I need to work on is intentionally deconstructing the front flippers so that it is angled downwards closer to the body. Right now, it is connected to the shell but it is actually connected to a joint and that joint is connected to the body of the turtle.
03.08.21
From the last critique, I tried implementing what Q said by creating a joint for the flipper. I also created an interaction through making the mouth open. I also talked to Dani when she came into office hours about how to approach Q’s suggestions and what interaction I should do and how I would implement it. Her advice was to focus first on the interaction because it is a required component of the project and then work on putting the flippers in the correct location and angle. Because the bottle neck has rings that decreases in size as it gets closer to the bottle, Dani said that I should work on it last because the taper of the neck can already convey that it is a neck and even though there is not a piece that smooths over the head and body, it is good enough to convey the form.
Interaction
When thinking of what interaction I wanted to do, I immediately thought of making the flippers rotate in its joint to mimic the motion and way the turtle swims, but the mechanics of making this happen was not the easiest so I decided to make the mouth move. To create this interaction, I used the curvature of a Lay’s Stax container and cut it to fit inside the bottom of the head. I was lucky in that the color of both the head and the mouth are very similar so it is not jarring for viewers when they interact with it. To make the mouth move, I just taped the piece to the bottom of the mouth which makes it easy to stay in the mouth and not fall out, but also the actual movement is not stiff like it would be if I were to use brads. I also didn’t use brads because I thought it would be distracting to have gold circles in the head that could have easily been mistaken for eyes.
Flippers
The main changes that I did to my turtle was create joints so that the flippers would be in the correct angle. To make the joint, I cut a milk jug at the curvature and glued it to the flipper. I connected it to the body by cutting the base of the spout of a laundry detergent bottle and cut a slit into body and inserted in that way. I did it in this way because there was no way for the milk jug piece to sit inside the body since it could easily fall out. By doing this, the flipper angles downwards and is not directly sticking straight out of the body. I used a lot of glue to connect the joint and flipper together so it is pretty messy, but to fix this, I think that I will just heat up a hot glue gun and use the side of the tip to slowly melt the glue and make it less bumpy.
03.11.21
Even after class, I still felt like there was a lot I could do to make the turtle more accurate, so I made some changes that I think overall made the turtle better and more accurate. The main things that I worked on was the shape of the shell, the neck, and the shape of the head.
Shell
Throughout the process of creating the turtle, I was satisfied with the shell and didn’t really touch it, however after presenting my turtle and looking back at more pictures of the turtle, the shell is more pointed at the end rather than flat which is what I had before. To fix this, I took the entire shell off of the body and cut it to have a point at the end. By doing this, the side and top profile views of the turtle are more accurate.
Neck
I decided to fix the neck because the form was not completely accurate. The neck is curved and connects the shell and the head which was not present in my last iteration. To create the neck in my final model, I cut the neck of an almond milk bottle and placed it over the empty area of the neck and glued it under the shell.
Head
Like the shell, throughout the process of creating my turtle, I was satisfied with the head but looking back at photos, I realized that the head was too flat and that there needed to be some plastic that created a curvature to make the connection of the head and neck not as jarring. The top part of the neck is from the curvature of a laundry detergent bottle cut down into the right size and shape of the top of the head and hot glued on. By doing this, the head is more curved and looks more accurate to the actual turtle. I also moved the eyes up so that they are in the correct place.
Final Kemp’s Ridley Sea Turtle
Interaction
From this project, I learned a lot about how to translate what I see into three dimensional form. Throughout creating the turtle, I had to consider what forms of the turtle were important to include and how much detail I needed to have. Although not everything turned out the way that I wanted, like the flippers and exact form of the head, I think that I learned how to portray most of the form and if I had more time I would go back to include more detail that would look like my actual turtle.
