Product Drawing, Final Submission.

And with that IDE1602 came to a close. Pete Elliot was a fine teacher and I felt really honoured for him to teach me these skills. I'm amazed at my improvement, it's kinda funny looking at the drawings I used to do, how I didn't understand perspective nor the way objects are meant to be constructed on a page.

So far, this has been the most rewarding unit I have ever undertaken.

Pen Sketches

Masks and Helmets
Pen and Marker

Miscellaneous Items

Pen, Marker, Blue Pastel

As a part of our required folio submissions, we were told to grab a Published Marker Rendering, and attempt to mimic it in it's near exact form. Should of picked easier shapes.

Percolator - Observational Rendering
(Left: Original. Right: Marker Rendering

Atari Console Concept - Observational Rendering

(Original Rendering, Bottom Right)

Poetic Products

This is essentially an extension of the previous IDE1112 Studio Project: "Sculpture". We were told to take the form theory, and philosophy from our sculpture, in order to create a product.

Some students in the class had decided to use the first 10 pages of their initial concept drawing to decide upon what product best suits their form. I, on the other hand, just jumped straight into it and choice to rehouse a Full Automatic Coffee Machine.

As so, I began researching and figuring out components required for such a complicated machine. Admittedly, having a few units of engineering under my belt really did help me figure out a lot of the components. It was probably the most enjoyable part in the process.

Having done that, I began playing with form, attempting to include as much of my cardboard sculpture in the final product as possible. I ended up with two final Concepts

Conception One: Aiming to capture as much of the sculpture into my final product as possible. Taking abstract features and philosophies and making them concrete.

Concept Two: The problem that I ran into with Concept One, was that there was a single element of the sculpture that I couldn't incorporate without disturbing the form. This concept came from the isolated the Sculptures head, and expanding the form focus from there.

We were required to design a lot of the components. I think I over engineered a lot of it.

The soul purpose of this project was to make the Industrial Design students learn to the balance of Form and Function. To learn how things come together to create a product. We were required to submit Layout drawings showing the internals and a general construction of how things came together.


Final Model! Made out of cardboard because Foam was too messy and annoying to source!

IDE1602: First Submission

I share an interesting love/hate relationship with this unit. I love it because it's purely learning how to draw and aiming to master the skill using common Industrial Design Drawing techniques.

The Class it taught by Pete Elliot who used to work for Ford. His mastery of the skill is brilliant, and I'm honoured to be his student. But at the same time, the amount of homework that he gives us per week make me absolutely dread this class. Not only is it held in the first 4 hours of monday morning, but with a requirement of 10 A3 pages of drawings a week is an absolute hell-bender! Also not to mention the price in which the drawing materials! Markers! Bleedproof Pads!

But all in all, the time and money spent on this unit, to me is most rewarding. It's perhaps the most rewarding unit under the Design Faculty that I've undertaken.

We were told to use drawing in pen and pen alone. The aim was to make us comfortable with our skills and to be conscious of every mark that we make. Learning to control the rip apart the 3D image we have in our heads, and to display it upon paper. We were also told to render with professional markers which come at a hefty price of approximately >$7 each. Worth the price I think, for it allows me to bring form and depth to a line drawing extremely quickly

A few days ago was the First submission of all the work that we had done for this unit. >70 pages were required. I had 75. But in the last week, I drew about 30 pages. It was absolutely hectic, though enjoyable.

Elliot reviewed everyone's work and critiqued them in private. His comments about my work?"Your colour schemes are odd, perhaps have someone to pick out a combination of colours that work out for you and for others.

Your style is very graphic, almost comic book like. Try not to make your line work as dark, let your markers bring our the form of your objects. I can see that you're most comfortable in doing character and fantasy designs, but do try and draw something more akin the Product Design as it is essentially the aim of this unit.

Oh, and I have to say that I was surprised at the level of your work, I think I gave you one of the highest grades"

Pride Sculpture

Assignment 2: "Sculpture by the C...block"

This brief we were presented with the list of the Seven Deadly Sins. In groups of 4, we were to pick one of them, and construct a sculpture emphasising form and dynamism out of Card. The group of people I was with decided to choose the word "pride".

It was difficult assigning an emotion to an animate object. It was a lot harder than I expected. But I soon realised that these verbs that we tie to inanimate objects has it's roots in the common human perception of the body language in others. With a solid starting point, I rushed to finish this week long intensive assignment.

I immediately jumped on the theme of Hubris, and took on the old German tale of "Doctor Faustus".

I had aimed to creature a proud looking figure (depicted by a general tapered shape) but I wanted to show the side of regret and remorse that comes after an act of hubris. So the expressions of the figure tend to be sad, the lines slow and fragile looking. His head is completely hollow, with a demon (Mephistopheles) occupying his consciousness. In his long fragil arm coming out from a hunched posture, he welds an axe, a symbol of the brutality that excessive pride can evoke. /bullshit.

Spreads

This is my 2nd year. Fourth semester.

My university timetable for this semester isn't too bad. 6 weeks in now, and I've learnt a fair bit, gained a few new skills in drawing, a few more insights in all sorts of design philosophies as well as the intricate analysis of stresses in various objects.

I truely do love this Double Degree that i'm undertaking at Monash. I'm receiving all the joys and excitement from the world of Industrial Design. Manipulating form, applying emotions, speed and various other verbs to completely inanimate objects. On the other hand, I'm getting all the explanations into the wonderful book of practical laws. Learning about how things fit together, how things are work in terms of maximizing it's strength without comprising the constant constraint of minimum cost.

All these things are good and well, but these days I've begun to doubt. I see the brilliant mathematical and analytical minds from the Engineering Department. They throw out these extremely elegant solutions and precise calculation from their concise knowledge and understanding of mechanics. Then I see the wonderful, fluid designs full of thought, deep process and profound philosophies. The amount of work that goes into a simple design is most admirable and fascinating.

Then there's me, doing this double degree. Who's torn between the thought processes of both. Engineering for maximum practicability, Designing for the most appealing aesthetics. My fellow double-degree-rs do just fine though. And probably don' share the same insecurities of being spread too thin, and being handicapped in this course (in comparison to those doing the vanilla courses).

Earlier this year, I ran into a fellow doing his Industrial Design at Monash. I found out that he was also a graduate of the same double degree that I was doing. I asked him, "As I'm taking more Engineering units, and gaining more knowledge in that area, I find that...the Industrial Design side just feels so superficial, frail and just fake." He chuckles and replies, "You're feeling that it's bullshit now? Oh man, it only get's worse from here."

That stuck with me.

Actually, he further went on and explained the course outline, and how it's inevitable for you to feel that way. Since you'll be always taking engineering units a level ahead of the units taken under the Design Faculty. Essentially, your course will dictate that you're knowledge in practicality will be so much more advanced in comparison to your skills in controlling aesthetics.

TL;DR: I think I'm spreading myself too thin, and I'm feeling like everything that I know is half-arsed. I'm complaining that the work load means that I don't have enough time and energy in the day to invest general knowledge and research into either degree properly.

"Jack of all trades, Master of None."

Solution: Work harder, be more efficient

Egg Drop

IDE1112. My first Industrial Design Studio.

Assignment 1: Construct a suitable housing of an Egg that is going to be dropped at >2m. The egg most remain intact through out all the different trials.

My three main concepts:

I eventually settled on the Icosahedron concept because it was one of the ones easier to make, and due to poor time management, it was the quickest thing I could come up with.

Essentially, this was the gist of it. I had a big starry object with multiple pyramid shapes to help it withstand the impact force at 2m and a little bit over. A cradle was constructed inside the outer housing in order to help distribute the force evenly around the egg, and to provide cushioning. Shredded foam core was used to imitate Packaging foam to help absorb in impact.

The complete structure, with the table cleared.

My design passed the 2m test, but failed all subsequent trials. What were the trials exactly? Trial 1: 2m

Trial 2: ~7m

Trial 3: 4 Stories
Trial 4: Thrown at a wall
Trial 5: Thrown at the ground.

Of all the housings made, two survived.

I enjoy holidays.

Some people use it to catch up with those who they haven't seem for a long while, others use the time to get some extra funds. Some even go to the extent of beginning their co-curricular studies.

Me? I use it to try and find myself again.

451° F

"Why aren't you in school? i see you every day wandering around."

"Oh, they don't miss me," she said. "I'm anti-social, they say. I don't mix. It's so strange indeed. It all depends on what you mean by social, doesn't it? Social to me means talking about things like this." She rattled some chestnuts that had fallen off the tree in the front yard. "Or talking about how strange the world is. being with people is nice. but I don't think it's social to get a bunch of poeple together and then not let me talk, do you? An hour of TV class, an hour of basketball or baseball or running, another hour of transcription history or painting pictures, and more sports, but do you know, we never ask questions, or at least most don't; they just run the answers at you, bing, bing, bing, and us sitting there for four more hours of film-teacher. That's not social to me at all. It's a lot of funnels and a lot of water poured down the spout and out the bottom, and them telling us it's wine when it's not. They run us so ragged by the end of the day we can't do anything but go to bed or head for a Fun Park to bully people around, break windowpanes in the Window Smasher place and wreck cars in the Car Wrecker place with big steel ball. Or go out in the cars and race on the streets, trying to see how close you can get to lamp-posts, playing "chicken" and "knock hip-caps". I guess I'm everything they say I am, all right. I haven't any friends. That's supposed to prove I'm abnormal. But everyone I know is either shouting or dancing around like wild or beating up one another. Do you notice how people hurt each other nowadays?"

-Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury

On the 11.29pm Train home.

Rickshaw

___________________________________________

I really enjoy watching people, and drawing the interesting and beautiful strangers that I see. I should do this more often. It seems to revitalize my soul.

The 11.29am Glen Waverly line from the city. A delightful couple looking tired after a night out. I couldn't finish the wife's face before they got off at Kooyong station.

I had spooted this couple when I was casually looking around me. He was in a full tux with brown outer jacket. He caught my stare, I nodded in approval with a smile, and he smuggly winked back. I love old people.

12.09am, Got off at Mount Waverly Station. Woolen black jacket, flowing black dress, helmed with a delicate black lace. Light cream heels, black handbag with thing leather cross body strap. Gold accents in jewelery.

I find it really hard to draw young people, and present them in a way to retain their beauty. Old people are easy to draw, their wrinkles and lines guide the form and structure. Young people with their elastic tight skin have little imperfections for my graphite to transfer on to paper.

I'm not a creep.

Model Making

ze plans

So this is what I've been working on for about 2-3 months. At university, I was required to undertake this Model Making Class (IDE1502) where we were to build a aesthetic model of a drill (or equivalent) with the university workshop equipment and learned skills.

I had decided to make a Nail Gun.

So, there it was, every spare moment throughout my week, I would hop over to Caulfield to utilise their facilities until they close. It's amazingly fun, but utterly time consuming. On any given week I would spent around 21hrs in the workshop machining each piece, and making sure that they are to the level of required perfection.

The process starts with some initial concept drawings, working out appropriate dimensions (given a bit of room for error), drafting sketches before we head into the machining process. In laymen's terms, we get blocks of wood and shape them with band-saws, sanders, mills and lathes.

Safety Prongs, Front Guard, Barrel (13 pieces)

Central stock and Front Housing (8 pieces)

Handle and Trigger (14 pieces)

Back and Vents (19 pieces)

After everything has been machined and sanded, we prepare for the painting stage. Oh exciting. Priming each piece and applying automotive paints. Then polish till it's as reflective as a coloured mirror.

I share an interesting love/hate relationship with this stage. Priming and Painting makes all your pieces of wood look absolutely presentable. But paint is less forgiving then wood. If you ruin the paintwork, you have sand off the entire layer and start again.

Every time I accidentally dent the paintwork with my fingernail, I have to sand everything back and repaint it. Every time I place it down on a piece of soft cloth, without the previous knowledge that it will leaves marks; I have to sand everything back and repaint it.

Since this week, I have been up to my painting stage. If we factor out all the mishaps and muck-ups, I would of been done by Wednesday. Why Wednesday? Well, because I was putting my last coat of paint on Tuesday in the spray booth at Caulfield. I left it to dry in there, and went off to work on other things. There were plenty of people in the workshop at the time, a lot of third years rushing to finish off their final products. One person came in to prime their work piece. His spray bottle splattered, and I got drops of primer on my drying paint. What to do? Sand everything back, repaint.

In order to avoid accidents that cannot be blamed on others, I decided to set up a workshop complete with spray booth at home, in the garage.

The workshop at home, complete with spray booth, old ruined table tennis table, and absolutely no ventilation!

The spray booth: gotta love the paint fumes.

___________________________________________

It was Saturday when I wrote the majority of this. But I had sanded and repainted that night.

It's Sunday evening now, and apart from cleaning up bits and pieces, polishing it up a bit more. I think I'm finished.

In my boredom and procrastinating from studying for my other exams, I had decided to make a carry case out of cardboard and masking tape. I don't know why, I love masking tape.

___________________________________________

shhhiiiiinnnnnnnnnnnnnyyyyyyyyyyy

Missing Tail

4th June @ 11:10

The day was cold, windy and cloudy. A perfect winter's day. We spotted this bird on the road, next to a girl who was making a distressed call. Was it a parrot? It was. Green bodied, blue headed and red beaked. It was scared, paranoid and missing a tail. Gentle I picked it up, hushing it, telling that it's "okay". I took it from the gutter and placed it at the nearby tree. Hopefully it'll recover.

What I didn't mention was that it's neck also showed signs of damage, and it looked dazed and traumatized.

I tried to pick it up a second time, deciding that it would probably be safer in in some bushes where it could hide from stray cats, but it squawked at me ferociously and flew across the road.

It's flight was beating it's wings extremely hard, you could hear the tips hitting the asphalt as it went. It didn't even make it over the gutter; though it tried desperately to climb up with it's beak hooked on the ledge.

I went over again in attempt to pick him up, but he again squawked loudly and flew in the other direction, although this time, he made it to a base of a tree.

I was glad that it had enough energy to fly that distance and gain a little more height than before. But from the distance I could see that it was pretty exhausted from that flight.

I feared for it's future.

Bring It.

reposted from aencre

___________________________________________

So it's about 6:30 in the morning having spent the entire night working on my Design Engineering group assignment. Lots of drafting, bit and pieces of force and deflection calculations, estimating loads, constantly imagining and accessing my design under the criteria of energy and cost efficiency. My head's a bit hazy, everything feels a bit slow. I can feel my heart beating with effort. I'm a little restless and absolutely exhausted.

Life is interesting and amazing. Especially once you realise morning has come with the birds chirping to the sunrise and a soft misty light from the cloudy sky lazily glowing through the blinds.

I go to think: Life is pretty wonderful.

My projects are not finished, there are a pile of assignments yet to be finished. There are exams to study for. But I think. It's time to stop making excuses; and start jumping over hurdles.

Problems fix themselves when your in the deep end, exhausted and struggling to stay afloat.

Good Old Billy Joel

.

Jacques Brel

“A man should look as if he had bought his clothes with intelligence, put them on with care, and then forgotten all about them.”Hardy Amies

Everything seems to be changing so quickly. The seasons are getting shorter, the clock is ticking faster. Things which I had previous thought were rare, infrequent are becoming increasingly common without loosing it's quality. I never seem to be able to keep track of the time. One week flies past and before I realise I'm already half way through the next. All those things that I push off to the side to do later, have been delayed for more than a year now. It's frightening because everything else has just been increasing in speed.Faster and faster these wheels are turning and churning. There's no brakes of any kind built into this vehicle of life as it runs along the highway.

“Style is knowing who you are, what you want to say and not giving a damn.”Gore Vidal[link]

Old Man

lamp

I got off the 737 bus and saw this man weaving through the crowd.

It was on a cold winter's night that I saw this man. He stood out amazingly well against the wall of dark cool winter jackets with his canary yellow polo collar protruding from his simple bright red pullover.

He was quite elderly, although surprisingly agile. He ran with this knees bent; thin, fine light brown tweed pants making a soft swishing sound as he ran. The wooden soles of his brown leather soles clicked as he swifty adjusted for the uneven ground. With a hand he pushed a dark brown leather carrier bag to his right. On his left, he used a long black umbrella is a counterweight.

Did I mention his thing wispy white hair waving gentle in the air? It was supreme.