Live and Learn

Last term ended so hectically that I didn't have time to sketch on my Friday or Saturday nights after Week 8. And the day after term ended I flew to Norcal and Asia. I will post the sketches I have been working on when I get back to the states and have my trusty little scanner. 

Product2 did not end the way I had intended it to, but I did learn an unbelievable amount from the experience. Not finishing has got to be one of the worst feelings. But finishing something that doesn't meet my standards feels just as bad. I need to learn to find a balance but at least I am now aware of this and will always keep it in mind with my future projects. Lessons on time management and planning will also be applied to all future projects.

Currently I'm designing the rear fenders of motorcycles. I was told by Jeff, our Product3 teacher, that we should analyze ergonomics over break. In Asia, where I am currently, I noticed on the back of pretty much every bike is a set of handles. Some integrated well into the bike's form, others look like they were an after thought. As cliche as it sounds, its a good practice for me in terms of trying to find a balance between form and function. I'll post these when I get back to the states!

Officine Rossopuro 'Big Red'

Starting to sketch in a sketchbook that has grey paper. It's amazing how dynamic the picture can become once you dabble some white on the page. Also, for some reason, I feel like I learn something new every time I sketch. Creating this sketch revealed to me how clean and beautiful lines look if you get them right on the first two tries especially if you apply them with enough weight that they stand out without needing to go over them again. It's crazy but having a line that is off by a quarter of a millimeter or waves off of a straight line by the tiniest amount can really be the difference between having the sketch be perceived as a tight clean sketch versus a quick "whatever" sketch. I think the goal of all this sketching is to not only hopefully tear it up in Viscom4 when I get there, but to truly understand the expression of form. Not sure if I mentioned that before but I'm excited for the possibilities that lay ahead. (Tearing it up in Viscom4 would be pretty satisfying as is though).

Back to Ballpoint

Product2 midterms are done now. These past few days made for another crazy week. I learned the importance of transitioning to 3D sooner in the design process, or at least when it is necessary to determine if something will actually work. Sketching is appropriate for certain things, when expressing ideas or giving a sense of how something WILL work. But when it comes down to executing a design in order to move forward in the deBacsign process and bring the product to fruition, it is vital to start building even if what you are making is not necessarily completely refined or thought through. Working in 3D reveals possibilities that sketching sometimes will not, and ideas will spawn from just holding a study model in your hands or pushing a mock-up around.

Anyway, this coming week I need to create tubing and a pathway for my push/pull toy. These are some sketches of forms that I did in class using ballpoint. It's been a while since I used ballpoint but this page really reminded me how fun it is as a medium. I initially stopped using it because you can't marker over it but now that I am depending on lines for values, I'm not really using marker's to render too much. That is on the list of things to become good at though so, maybe I'll start marker rendering in the near future. Despite what I said about 3D building, sketching of course remains the most efficient way to express, create, and sift through ideas. At the beginning of Product2 this term, I discovered how sketching forms on a page without necessarily any clear concrete direction can lead to other ideas.

Week 6 and 7

This past week was week 7, which means midterms. Before this past week, I had only pulled one all-nighter and that was for my Viscom1 final in 1st term. This past week I ended up pulling two, one for Viscom and 3DFund midterms, and the other for Product2. I had 3 midterms due in two days and this definitely was the hardest I've ever worked at ACCD. I certainly do not have it the hardest, I'm sure people have gone twice as long without sleep working on much harder classes. But I can now say I've stayed awake for 54 hours straight literally working on one thing or another for the whole duration. Its amazing what the body and mind can accomplish when locked in, running from the fear of getting caught in the disappointment of missing a deadline. Back in high school I couldn't concentrate on homework for more than 45 minutes to an hour before I would go outside, shoot some hoops, or open up the laptop to play some CSS, feeling half guilty that I was fictionally killing terrorists while literally killing time that very much needed to be used for a better cause. Throwing away my weekend and not being productive was my fault and the cause for this whole debacle. 

Here are some sketches from the last two weeks. This past weeks sketches for Product2 were really really weak. I was so tired when I sketched them, and their strictly mechanical nature was not enticing enough of a sketching treat to enthuse me to produce some visually pleasing compositions. However, great practice for drawing things that need to be relatively simple, very clean so they read one way and one way only because when drawing gears, you need the viewer to see it the way you know it to be. You don't want them to have their own interpretation, you want them to for once to exactly mirror your own. And got one page of some bike parts. This is the first time I've used grey paper so I am still understanding the nuances of the white pen. Last night I tried sketching for fun as a treat to myself but only got that one page done before I was too tired to continue. Click To Enlarge. 

AC Sanctuary Katana

Finally got this page done. Started it last weekend and didn't finish it till tonight. Although I do like the perspective views I drew, the composition is weak due to the lack of a background, or a ground line that supports the bikes and gives them some sort of context. I also feel that when negotiating certain parts of the bike that I cannot see on the reference image, I need to do a better job filling it with a tone instead of black, or filling it with a part instead of just a tone and/or black. The next bike I draw, I'm first going to see the bike from multiple angles, then draw out different parts of the bike in a few perspective views, then finish with one or two views of the actual bike together. The hope is to better understand the form of the bike, and eventually understand the forms well enough to construct one on my own, accurately. Trying to avoid just random forms that look rightly placed and positioned. I want to actually draw out parts and pieces correctly relative to each other so that if and when I do want to design something, say a bike, I will have understood the reasons for positioning certain things and not have it be just a "looks cool" thing but an actual, functional product. Anyway, gotta do viscom2 homework tomorrow, and some Art of Research. After that, on to Product2 homework and the whole toy thing for the rest of the week. Click To Expand

More Ideating

Got class tomorrow morning at 8am but couldn't fall asleep so I decided to post since I'm a bit overdue. Product2 went alright today. Going through the process of developing an idea based off of research and core findings is frustrating at the least. When I do "find" the idea that I want to pursue that fulfills all my design requirements and criteria, I'll be very happy. Here are some sketches from last weeks ideating. We were supposed to build on the previous weeks' work but since I didn't like any of my ideas, I basically took my design drivers and focused on the story of the toy, not the way it functions and works. Letting go of trying to figure out how this toy functions helped tremendously even though my instructors wanted me to take the concepts I developed, and take them in a different direction. The sketches themselves were fairly weak this time around. Because I was a bit stressed, I forgot to let loose on my foundation lines so things look a bit "square" or stiff. Once I remembered to let go and not really be concerned on the initial lines, the sketches started to get better. But for the most part, the composition of my pages and perspective views I utilized were nothing special, and a bit boring. Flat would be the right word. Not dynamic enough. Enjoy. Click To Enlarge.

Need More Sleep

So, had a long day of trying to ideate 30 more designs off the ones my instructors wanted me to tackle. Here are some of the original ideation sketches that I did for last week. We needed to come up with 40 different designs for a Push/Pull toy. I'm still learning how to incorporate my research into my toys, then add a fun factor. My designs are very mechanical, and the fun factor is missing in nearly all of them. Tomorrow I need to do the remaining 15 designs for this week, since I did 15 today. Also in the middle of a bike that will hopefully be done in the next two days. This stuff is fun, no joke. Click to Enlarge