Final Idea (Recap)
From the previous blog, I have decided to create 3 things for my final outcome, including:
- News article — Setting the scene in 2050 where the third virus is coming and people in Country X are forced to stay indoor for a long period of time
- Physical Model — Creating a physical model as a sample house showing to public what “fantasy ideas” are possible to create in one’s home
- Product Catalogue — A booklet with several sample house design, and a list of products that are available to buy for creating the fantasy home
After deciding what I’m going to make, I started working on them on the following day. My goal was to finish everything before Christmas.
Physical Model
The model that I decided to build was came from one of the designs from the second design session. I chose to create the one with childhood/ entertaining theme.
Swimming Pool
At first, I wanted to let the model to have more texture and more elements, so I tried to use a lot of white glue to serve as the water part of the swimming pool. However, my experience failed, not only it took more than a week to get it to dry, the size and shape of the glue went weirder and smaller everyday. It just didn’t turn out the way I wanted it to be, so at the end I just used a half transparent colour paper to represent the pool water.
Screen/ Fireplace
For the movie screen/ fireplace, since the original idea was to serve these two functions, I also added the thickness to the side so as to fit in two cards to change the way it displays to public. At this stage, I found it pity that we won’t be able to have a physical Graduate Showcase, otherwise people can see the physical model and play with it.
Flying Fries
I used the paper folding method to create the origami fries, and to create the flying food scene, I made use of the fish wire and stick them together and place the wire on two side. Since the paper fries were very light weight, the fish wire didn’t fall off and was securely stayed in place. I also added a futuristic food machine as the controller to order food.
Trampoline
The trampoline was one of the small model that I found myself failing to do. I tried to follow the shape and height of the trampoline with the Sketchup model, but after creating it l thought it looked like a large table instead…
Foldable Floating Mattress
This is the second small model that I think I didn’t do a good job on. Although it did look like the ones I made with the 3D model, but I guess I didn’t draw it properly during the design session to make it look realistic enough. It is hard tell it is a floating mattress at all… This was my first time using the method of sewing to build a model.
Pipe
Working on the pipe was an easy one. I have been saving toilet paper rolls and cereal boxes in case for crafting purposes, and I was able to use it for creating the pipe. The size of it also fits the ratio and dimension of the model, so I didn’t have to spent much time working on that.
Background Setting
Poundland was my good friend this time. I made use of the cotton pads and cotton balls to create the snow and clouds scene. To create more layers, I used white card paper to make three layers of background snow. As for the pine trees, I reused the ones that I made from previous project, this really helped to save a lot of time. I remember I spent hours making those threes back in the days.
Exterior Walls
The walls looks easy to make, but in fact I had to make sure the measurements were correct for every side. I had to double check a few times before cutting it because I didn’t purchase any extra foam board due to cost. Fortunately, everything went well.
Here’s the finish look of the model
Product Catalogue
As I really wanted to get the catalogue printed before the printing station in LCC closed for Christmas break, I immediately started to work on it right after completing the model.
Working with this product catalogue allowed me to be creative and free as I need to turn some of the items from the 3D model to a sellable product. For examples, I added a thruster for the floating bed in the overwater bungalow design. For the cloud shape marshmallow, I turned it into a can shape and labelled it as reformable, so people can transform it to any shape they want instead of fixing it as clouds. In the space design, the participant wanted the room to be zero gravity, so for the product, I used a floating bubble ball instead. This way, not only human can be floated, they can also place the stars and diamond decor in the bubble ball to create diamond rain and star sky. There are also other fun products which I will show through the photos below.
I was able to book a printing session and do the printing in time, but I didn’t know cutting and binding belongs to another department hence I didn’t make a reservation for that. Fortunately the staffs were very nice and allowed me to walk in.
Cutting and binding was another new experience to me, I learnt the procedure of using a bone folder for folding and creasing paper before moving on to cutting and binding. (Trust me, it sounds simple but I never knew what a bone folder is nor its function).
It was also my first time seeing how to do a saddle stitch binding with the old but still workable machine! I knew LCC used to be a college that majors with professional printing, but I still found it amazed to see how it is still working until now.
Reflection
I feel satisfied with progress I made this week since two out of the three outcomes are done. Every time looking at the product catalogue, I just feel proud of what I’ve accomplished so far. But I didn’t manage to book the photo studio in time to capture my model, I will have to try and see if I can do it when the photo studio starts reopening again.
