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This is the second part, continuing from the first one half. DSGN 110-Rapid Viz DSGN 110-Rapid Viz

Learning Portf olio (Part 2)Learning Portf olio (Part 2)Christopher WuChristopher WuFall 2009Fall 2009

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Table of ContentsTable of ContentsBall Conversion GadgetBall Conversion Gadget- p. 1~6- p. 1~6Contour LinesContour Lines- p. 8~11- p. 8~11Shade and ShadowsShade and Shadows- p. 12~15- p. 12~15ReflectionsReflections- p. 16~17- p. 16~17PeoplePeople- p. 18~19- p. 18~19Envelope - How to OpenEnvelope - How to Open- p. 20- p. 20Final ProjectFinal Project- p. 21~24- p. 21~24EndEnd- p. 25- p. 25

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For this assignment, we were to think of “action” words, and then maybe draw a few quick thumbnails showing what the action would look like.

It took less time than I thought to draw the actual thumbnails, and I found that by drawing the first thing that came to mind, I was able to quickly associate the proper doodle to the word. Now, if I can only do it as easily with all the other assignments, I think I would have had an easier time in terms of progression, instead of being stuck over-thinking and not drawing.

Ball Conversion GadgetBall Conversion Gadget

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From the list of words we came up with, we were told to take some of them and make a machine that would turn a ball into a cube.

This is the quick sketch that I did during class time. I didn’t exactly know what to do, so I decided on a basic gravity based machine, where once released at the top, gravity would take the ball all the way down.

I drew the individual parts, and then tried to draw a set of pillars and supports around them. I think in my mind, I was working out how this machine would actually be built in real life.

I decided to go with this design, and for the homework section, develop it even more.

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Here is what I came up with. The orthographics of my ma-chine was really challenging to draw in terms of the side and top part.

I think this is because I only considered the front view dur-ing my thought process, and spent too much time looking at my initial sketch instead of developing the 3-dimention of the design.

After drawing the perspective view (right) I realized a major flaw with my decision to make it so high. In order to show everything in the perspective drawing, I had to “zoom out” the view to be pretty far. By doing so, the individual parts ended up too tiny for people to see what the part was.

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I didn’t know exactly how to fix it then, so I decided to enlarge sections of the machine so that they are big enough for viewers to see the actions. Even though the line quality isn’t exactly the best, these quick sketches was one of the first time I was able to use ‘rapid viz” in a fairly quick fashion to construct an actual “object” of my own design.

I didn’t really think about the construction of say, the button in part one too long. I just drew the base, extruded the pillars, drew the box in 3d, drew the wireframes, and added the inner details. For the last part, I tried out drawing the “grid” as mentioned in the text book, so that the letters will have the proper perspective on a foreshortened surface. It sorta worked, but I will practice it more on my own time so it looks more uniform when I try it again.

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Section drawings cont.

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In my re-do, I decided to scrap the focus of the design on gravity-powered, and instead focused on mak-ing the machine more read-able to the viewer. I condensed the size of the machine to a much smaller area so that I won’t have to spend time worrying about the size of the thing, and I decided to show the drawing in a one point instead of two point, so that everything is in clear view.

After looking at the other designs made by classmates, it was brought up that designs doesn’t have to be 100% physically possible, or require any detailedknowledge of the inner workings. After hearing that, I decided to take out some actions and put in a “not really practice in real life” flamethrower. Overall, even though I do not like the final result, I feel like this one is more readable than my first attempt.

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Misc excercises, sketches, etc

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At first, I didn’t really “get” contour lines. As you can see on the left, my first attempt at a tree trunk was not exactly anything to write home about.

After more demos and asking a few questions, my mind was able to connect the lines with “wireframe” construction, and my later attempts were a little more successful. I was able to at least draw something that resembles the shape of a tree trunk.

I think the explaination of “cut-ting into layers” helped a lot in my understanding.

Contour LinesContour Lines

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Commentary For the homework, we were to create either a creature that evolved, or a “space” using contour lines. While I would of normally picked the creature assignment due to my major, I decided to try the other side of things for a change. After drawing the basic outline of the form, I just decided to draw contour lines to fill up some space and see where my lines take the drawing. I would add one or two random lines in the drawing, and then form more contour lines around it until I can “feel” the bump or ledge forming in the picture. After a while, I realized line weight is actually very important, especially since there were so many of them right next to each other. While I was happy with some parts of it, there were areas where it didn’t turn out that well when I look at it from a few feet. I think it was mostly due to my initial random marks and drawing lines around it with-out too much planning that gived parts like the lower left crater a weird set of contour lines.

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After showing our work in class, we came across the subject of layout in our pre-sentations. Drawing without consideration of the layout could ruin the whole composi-tion and feel of the piece.

The homework was then to draw a set of contour line drawings, with an enlarged version of your favorite one. They are to be place in a way that would organize the whole drawing.

I decided to draw a grid with a large box in the corner being the enlarged version. After presenting the next day, it was suggested that I try to make each cell either outlined or have each drawing go to the edge of the box/or not, in order to make each one relate to each other more. I can see how that would im-prove the composition more, as right now it just seems like some boxes are floating, while some are mounted onto something.

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Misc. notes, exercise, sketches, etc.

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For shade and shadow, our first homework assignment was to have some objects set out when the sun is low, mark the shadow, and try to draw it.

It was really weird at first because I had to draw some-thing freehand, but yet still be accurate enough so that the shadows and the vanishing points matched properly.

In the end, I had to find the vanishing points in my own drawing, and then refer back to real life to check if I made any mistakes. The finished drawing was more of an aver-age between my mistakes and checking back, more than actually drawing the still life itself. But I was glad that I had a visual reference, since drawing shadows is new to me.

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Shade & ShadowShade & Shadow

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However, during the presentation, I realized that marking down everything was needed in order to clearly show what I did to come to the conclusion (the shadow).

So in my redo, I made sure to mark down everything as clearly as I can.

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Misc. notes, excercises, sketches, etc.

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Misc. notes, exercises, Sketches, etc cont.

On the bottom left, I tried to apply shade and shadow in the context of an outdoor area. I used the measuring proportion technique that we learned during the interior room exercise.

On the right, I tried to Combine both the shadow and shading technique with the strict but accurate office method we learned a few classes earlier (I think I did it right?) with a basic geometric shape. I also tried to use a point light source instead of the sunlight (all rays goes to a point instead of being parallel).

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At first I thought reflections were just a mirrored image onto a surface, but then I real-ized that with different view-points, the reflection would be different. I was confused on how exactly that would work, but the in class demo was easy to understand and cleared up how it works.

On the left though, I think I drew some proportions a little off since I was half listening and half drawing at the same time. But I got the basics of it. In my mind, I refer to it as looking at a mirror, where the reflection may show a view not see-able from my own standing point. (like the underside of the block on the doorway, in the sketch to the right)

Refl ecti onsRefl ecti ons

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For extra study, we were told to look at 1 point and 3 point if we wanted, so I did.

While 1 point was basically following the same rules as 2 point, the 3 point had me scratching my head for a bit. In 1&2 point, the height of the reflection was exactly the same as the object. However, in a 3 point perspective, that would look wrong, since it needs to be foreshortened.

So after thinking about it for a while, I realized that I can simply divide the square and extend (from the old exercis-es) in order to get the correct height, and after that, the rest of the drawing went fine. Each assignment is a constant reminder that all the things we learned build upon another.

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Drawing people always seems to be such a daunting task. While drawing a cube slightly off is not that notice-able, but drawing a person slightly off may result in some really weird looking guy.

Which is why I liked the exercise of drawing just the gestures of the person. It is a nice way of getting use to the human form while not getting bogged down in the details. I can freely explore the pose and emotion of the figure quickly too.

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PeoplePeople

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people cont.

Contour lines added to the figure in the middle to help define the volume.

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In this exercise, we tried to illustrate some instructions in 5 steps on how to open an envelope to somebody that never opened one before. Some of my classmates went for opening it with cutters, I went for just opening it via the flap.

The tricky part of this exercise to me was how to commu-nicate the core information right to the viewer. This was something that was going to present a problem in my final project as well, so I’m still trying to wrap my head around it. One thing is for sure though; re-drawing with input from others helps a lot in adjusting the drawings.

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How to Open an EnvelopeHow to Open an Envelope

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In my final project, I decided that I wanted to make a desk that would suit a few of my needs.

I first started with a basic list of what I wanted in my desk, such as the wire organiza-tions, the monitor, speaker, and tower placement, etc.

At first I didn’t know how to start the process, so I basical-ly drew up a generic square desk as a placeholder to put things in, then I build the shape around it using itera-tions of forms until I found one that matched.

And for myself, I drew up a flowchart of all the connections, so that that I have a list of areas I need to construct in my drawings.

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Final ProjectFinal Project

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I isolated the 4 main areas I wanted to address, and from there, I looked at various websites and computer desks around campus and in catalogs for some inspiration. It wasn’t going anywhere for a while, since most of those desks only at most addresses the wire problem, but never in conjunction with footprint, lighting, and a specialty speaker system that I wanted.

So I switched gears a bit and looked towards entertainment systems, and eventually onto arcade machines, where the designs often pack a lot of features into a cabinet in an organized fashion.

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I then worked on the otho-graphics of the desk to plan out the layout of components in detail. I added some ex-tra room in the back to help organize the wires, as from the inspiration of the arcade cabinet’s wiring system.

During the presentation however, I was not able to say all the things I wanted in my 3 minutes. While I had practice in front of classmates and roommates, standing in front of 3 strangers who were professionals in design, made me quite nervous. In my shaken state, I regretfully skipped over a few parts of my speech, particularly areas which addresses delimitations and other things they asked about in the critique section, such as alternative solutions, materials, etc. I will definitely have to work on nerves when it comes to presenting, so that I am better prepared for something like this again in the future. Drawing a lot more iterations would prob help too.

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During the critique, they commented on my choice in order of presentation, saying that the drawing (left) should be the first one. Also, one of them was confused because I was using that drawing as a conclusion of my desk form, from all the things I added, but he thought that it was the overall finished form and that the chair was missing. I tried to explain that that drawing was not the finished form and that the one in the orthographics WITH the chair was, but since I had the 2point perspective as the last one, they said that if it had the chair, it would have been better.

Also, they mentioned “bending the rules” a bit, where if the instruction did not say you could not do something, then there is nothing stopping me from o. SO, I decided to make use of the bit I learned about auto-cad to create a render of the desk, with the chair.

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Well, that’s it. In this class, I have learned many things. From the basic of basics like drawing a line or a cube, to making a full-blown project of designing my own product and presenting in front of the class, it was an eye opening experience. The main thing that I think I’m walking away with though, is not just the techniques I have learned, but an understanding on what my weaknesses are and what I can improve on.

Over the course of the many projects, I had been forced to think in ways I had not think-ing before, and even now I am not use to it. But at the same time I have learned some valuable processes in which I can go through to tackle those problems step by step. I will continue to ap-ply that to all the new things I am going to be learning so that there will never a thing that confuses me without me breaking it apart until I can understand it.

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EndThe class has ended, but the lessons continue on.

Thank you for looking at my portfolio. =)