Author: David Wang

This is a 3D printed model that can cast a shadow of Spongebob. Inspired by artist Diet Wiegman, the goal of this project is to create a model that looks like some crazy Cthulhu monsters and have a shadow of Spongebob.

Things went well:

The shadow turned out well.

The 3D print:

This project is printed by Formlabs Form 2 3D printer with grey resin(it works and it was the only option). The detail of the model was very well preserved. After it’s printed, I only spent about 20 minutes to clean up all the support structures and I could get the shadow already.

Things didn’t went well:

The 3D model

The 3D model was built in Zbrush and inspected in Maya. Zbrush does not have the tool to set a light scource in a specific place and have an object behind the model to receive shadow; therefore, the model is imported into Maya within a scene contains a focus light and a large plain to receive the shadow.

Basically, I blocked in a general shape in Zbrush, imported it into the maya scene, then imagined how to modify the model to get the shadow I wanted, and lastly go back to Zbrush and sculpt on the Zbrush file. Because my brain is not that powerful, so the possibility of the model have been significantly shrunk. The silhouette of my 3D model still looks very much like Spongebob, which is not ideal. Plus I didn’t have much time to work on the details of the model.

If somehow I can find a 3D package that allows me to model with real time shadow casting, the product will have much higher quality.

BTW I can see why Wiegman didn’t create art pieces similar to my concept because making one thing to have a shadow of another thing is really hard.

    

note: Don’t try clay at home if you don’t have the TECHNOLOGY.

Printing. Will take 6 hours.

The legs are really boring because they have to be the basement of this sculpt in order to make it stand up.(hopefully)

A low quality 3D model

 

Expectation:

Inspired by shadow art from Diet Wiegman, I decide to create an art piece based on sculpture and shadow. The project functions similarly as Wiegman’s which a strong light source is used to project shadow of the sculpture on a wall.

Wiegman’s shadow art all have very complex forms and that will be too much to achieve in this short period of time; therefore, the resulted shadow of this project will be relatively simple.

In Wiegman’s pieces, the original sculpture usually don’t have a particular meaning, and they are just random shapes. To make my project more interesting, I’ll try to give the sculpture some sort of shape or form, but maybe the reason why Wiegman didn’t do it is because it’s quiet difficult. The material I expect to use is some kind of clay.

shadow:

sculpture:

hope I can actually make something like this

or some Cthulhu monsters

 

Backup plan: if the first one does not work, I’ll just build a lamp out of LEDs. (yeah that’s it)

Diet Wiegman, Dutch artist, was voted as the most brilliant artist of the Netherlands in 2009 and 2010.

Many of these sculptures are from the 1980s and contain messages about consumption and consumerism during a boom period in the Western world, which is the main reason he choose to sculpt with garbage. The idea behind these sculptures were raising the awareness of pollution and waste.

Around 1990 he started to create rotating sculptures. This adds a whole new dimension to his art piece.

Recent pieces regarding Europe and electronic devices: