Happy New Year 2012

Well it's been a bit of an odd year.

Looking back on 2011 I can honestly say I've never had a year quite so....mixed. With my illness and hospital at the start of the year and my A-Levels, the start wasn't too great. Then came a nice recovery period over the summer with a great camp to Denmark (despite being limited by doctors orders). And then finally a great autumn and winter at University. So yeah it has definitely improved over the year (despite a low at about Easter when I couldn't eat anything) and thanks to everyone who has help me through it and enjoy it. And also thanks to all of you who have (and are) looking at this, my blog (and if your wondering the image above was made of a combination of Photoshop and Illustrator). Your continual interest has really helped me get through some hard times and you have really pushed and expanded my work and work load, so again thank you.
So now nothing more than to hope you all had a good 2011 and I hope you have an even better 2012 (unless the world ends......or not).

Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas! Yeah OK I know it is late but the days up to Christmas were filled with shops, wrapping and sellotape, and sorry but I'm not going to be doing this on Christmas Day and yesterday I was out so today then. I wanted to do a wintry scene so I settled on this view over some snowy mountains with the stag (or reindeer if you want) standing on this outcrop. It was fun, I got to use some different and more unusual brushes in photoshop, and it was interesting doing the deer. Oh and I may have been somewhat inspired by The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, which I got on Christmas and I must say is brilliant!

 These below show different stages of the painting, which are also the total number of layers I used for this, the last layer being the deer.

So hope you all had a merry Christmas, and hopefully I will get another post before new years so so-long for now.

Wood Workshop- Finished

So the wood workshop is now finished and I have a lovely table, box for my trammel and a pair of joints (not pictured).

Last we saw the trammel box it was finished but looked somewhat like this. So now it is fully constructed and finished. I chose to varnish it and not polish it as I prefer the satin look to the glossy look from the polish.

The lid on the top, made of veneered MDF, slides open to the left to reveal...

The Trammel inside. The orange tray is simply some HIPS vacuum formed around a premade mould to hold the trammel in it's various parts. I chose orange, partly because it was between that, red or yellow, but also because it compliments the gold of the brass and the paleness of the beech. I may change it when I get round to the plastic workshop, as it isn't cut perfectly and I will have a greater choice of colour, but for now it is fine. I am particularly glad this is made as I now have a place to store the trammel, which was just sitting on my shelf.

Of course the other piece I made in the workshop was the coffee table. Last time the table was still in two pieces with the legs gluing in pairs but the two pairs of legs were glued together with the remaining two side pieces.

That done I began work on my table top. I you remember the top was designed as such with a bullet like hole in the top. I have suck with this idea. However because I had more time that I reasoned it would take to create the hole, I decided to first create a basic inlay in the form of the border of Mahogany.

This proved to be anything but simple, but in the end I got it done to a quality I was happy with. I then consulted with one of the technicians on how best to create the crack, and we decide that I should first use a Forsner bit to create the hole and then use a large Heckler saw to cut out the cracks. However another technician, while being asked about the plausibility of making the cuts, kindly agreed to cut it himself, as the thick oak would need an experienced and very steady hand to guide the wood. So the next morning I collected my perfectly cut wood, and set about sanding it down, using a Bobbin Sander to create the jagged edges of the hole and then painted the inside in black paint before varnishing it.

 Once it was dry and the legs were dry as well, I used some screws to fix the top in place finishing off the table, and with only 10minutes before the deadline just in time too.

I am really pleased with how it has come out and now that I have had my last lecture of 2011, I can take it home with me tomorrow! So just a quick thanks for all of you who have stoically endured this through my first term at Brunel and I'll be back at Brunel in January, but even though it is now the holidays I still have a lot of work to do so I will keep posting, though I may take a break for Christmas:)

Wood Workshop- Trammel Box and Table construction

Back to the workshop. Today I continued with the wood workshop, working on the trammel box and table. The box for the trammel, is made out of beech, (we had a choice between beech or mahogany) and is designed to, with an extra part that will be made in the plastics workshop, to hold and display the trammel from the metal machining workshop.

Today I managed to effectively finish the box, leaving the varnish to dry over night and then I will clean it up in the morning. I am really pleased with the finish I got on the joints in the box ( a LOT of sanding down) and I am pleased that it is basically done as this leaves more time to work on the table.

The table is made out of oak, and is only a small side table, however for this we do get to design the tabletop however we like (within reason).

 Having previously cut out the joints on the correct pieces of oak (it was already cut to two sets of four lengths, one set for the legs, the other for the sides), today I was able to clean up the joints and begin it's assembly and gluing, fixing the four legs into two sides of the table. Tomorrow I will be able to connect these two parts together with the other two sides and begin work on the table top.

Below are my sketches for the table top designs. With the first page it was simply vague categories of possibilities, no true designs. But I then came up with the climbing idea on the second page to the right.

But it was rejected as being too complicated. So I went back to the sketches and, inspired by a 'cracked' table I found while researching, I decided to make the table look as if it has been shot. But to twist things up a bit I have chosen to depict the crack as if it was made of glass, as this will add to the surrealism of the design, and look more dramatic.

 The crack will be cut right through the table top but with some clever positioning and cutting, the table should be able to keep it's strength and look good, well hopefully, or it could go horribly wrong... oh well, find out tomorrow.

Cocktail Maker- Mixing Sketching and Photoshop

A couple more concepts for Graphics, to help flesh out the workbook. These are two designs where I show a couple of the quick ways I can render concepts. I started both designs with a simple pencil and pen isometric drawing.

Then I added marker rendering to the sketch adding tone and texture to help define both its colour form and material.

Then finally I used the original drawing in Photoshop to create this colour render of the the product.

The second design was done in exactly the same way as the one above. To quicken the Photoshop stage I used my graphics tablet as I am quicker and more comfortable with it than with either the mouse of touchpad.

A World of Drink

Here is another graphic I have made for my graphics project. I am designing a cocktail maker, and as a part of the research I have been looking up the origins of various drinks and cocktails. During which I came to the interesting realisation that alcoholic drinks are one of the few discoveries/inventions that have been created worldwide by independent cultures. As such I decided to make this graphic to help demonstrate this fact.

I started off with some various items related to making cocktails, getting images of them and creating silhouettes of them. The images I used are below.

I then imported them into an image of a map of the world to create the image below.

However I did not like how it came out it appeared too cluttered and a mix to too many varied shapes. As such I decided to remake it using only the images below.

From these I made this image which I will use in my workbook. I will annotate it in illustrator, as it is a better text editor.

Wood Workshop- H

Today was the start of the wood workshop and I learnt of the three objects I would be making over the course of the next two weeks up to the Christmas Holidays. I must admit that wood is one of my least favourite of the main materials (wood, plastic metal, fabric) to work with, due to it's unpredictable nature, and its tendency to distort of be damaged in some way (splinters, dents, warping, swelling, grain, splitting etc.) however I cannot deny it's aesthetic properties. So it is with some apprehension that I approach this workshop, but hopefully all will go smoothly.

The three objects I will be making are a construct combining two joints, a box for the trammel I made here, and a small table. The first two must be made to description, however the table will be my own design based on a basic template.

We began with the joint construct, which is a H shape (above), made in Pine, which uses a Lap joint at one end and a Mortise and Tenon at the other. It also features a champfer along the inside edges. The aim of this is to understand the properties of the material and get used to working with it, the challenge is that it is made entirely by hand tool, no machines. Over the day I have made good progress and am nearly finished with this, I have only to clean up the champfer and faces and I will be done (it is not being glued). Tomorrow I will start on the Table and Box. Here are some pictures of the construct.

 Making the piece above involved a number of new tools for me including the clamp below, which is inserted into a hole in the workbench and allows a greater freedom than simple G clamps.