In this section I will discuss how Birdform 1 was conceived and designed. I do all my design and drawing in computer graphics programs. My main design programs are Caligari Truespace, Adobe PhotoShop , Bryce Poser 3, Bryce 2, Painter and Microsoft Publisher. Truespace is a 3-D program. In 3-D programs all sides of the model are viewable and all aspects of the design are changeable in 3-D space. The object in the program is an electronic clone of a real object. It can have all the physical attributes of a real object.. These include but are not limited to mass, texture, color, reflectance, etc. I used Truespace for Birdform 1. The nice thing about designing in a 3-D program is you can "see" exactly what you are working on and not just in one view like traditional drawing. You can fly around the object, zoom in for closer inspection, pull back for the larger picture. Every thing can be changed in real time. It is a sculptor's dream come true.
Birdform 1 came from my continued experimentation with different forms and permutations within the 3-D program. The ability to make forms and continually change them until you have exactly what you want is an incredible new tool. Never before has a sculptor been able to effortlessly manipulate an object with such ease and speed. This form of design completely eliminates the physical world and all it's problems. Of course one takes into account gravity when doing an actual design as the finished product must live in our world.
All computer generated 3-D objects
start with a framework, called a wireframe. This is one of an infinite number of
views available of this object. Subsequent views all have this wireframe
"under" them. There is a skin applied and all color, texture and
reflectance values are applied to this skin.
This is a top
view of the wireframe. All this is going somewhere. Notice the longitude and
latitude are defined by lines. This makes it very easy to duplicate the form in the
real world using uniform materials and a little additional modeling.
The base wireframe. I designed many different
bases for this sculpture. I approach bases as an integral part of the
sculpture. This one presented many problems, not the least was a broad footprint for
stability while retaining a light, open feeling. I also take into consideration the
degree of difficulty in casting.
This is a top perspective view of the final
design. In 3-D graphics, this is called a rendering. The "skin" is
in place and the object is lit using different kinds of lights, including spots, fills and
ambient lights. This is exactly like taking a photograph of the object. An
alternative viewing method would be to make an animation. This is analogous to
replacing a still camera with a movie camera. In this case you could have the movie
camera move around the object, zoom in and pan out. Background images or other
objects can be included in the scene. For instance, if you wanted to view this a
sculpture in your yard, I could insert photos of the area into the program and either take
stills or animations of the sculpture in what would appear to be your landscape.
this is especially nice in commission work because the client gets to see exactly how the
sculpture looks in place.
Another top view, but from the back. In the
program I can move all around the object to better understand the object in preparation
for building it. I can do this in either wireframe of a solid mode.
This is a view that someone roughly 5'10"
would see. Although they do not show, there are 15 lights on this object. The
color is how I see the patina at this point. The base will be limestone.
I can easily change the texture and colors to see how different patina's would work.
I have many saved colors and textures that I know I can duplicate in real bronze.
I can
even use a high polish in the program.
Now the hard part starts. Making this baby in bronze. There will be changes as we go along, but I try to stick to the form as closely as possible. Textures are what change most. These changes are made in the model and in the wax. The next step is transferring the form to something we can touch.