Real-resculpt: ZIMBABWE BIRD

Work in progress: ZIMBABWE BIRD phase 0.01
Finally I am combining physical sculpture and digital sculpture. From idea I have had from my notebook, to a rough armature, then attaching RP Crow skull Scrimshaw printout to the armature and what will eventually a final sculpture- (whether the final will be digital or analogue has yet to be decided).

Voxel figure study

Speed sculpt exercise done in 3D Coat.

3D paper printer

MakerBot

RP printing in steel from shapeways

The team at shapeways did such a good job on the CrowSkull scrimshaw that I am thinking of having it printed in steel.

Unity Engine gallery test scene 0.01

A very basic test scene in Unity 2.6. The aim is to create a series of viewing rooms to show off the digital works produced during my studies.

Crow Scrimshaw (Actual)

I finaly recieved my first 3D print of my works from shapeways printers in the Netherlands.The piece is to be a part of my “Day Works”, a series of portrait busts and drawings, which look at human animal archetypes, specifically bird and human hybrids. The image/archetype stems from my early childhood on a farm in Zimbabwe. The image of the Zimbabwe bird was often reproduced in the soap stone sculptures produced by local people and has always been a poignant symbol. As a child in Zimbabwe I grew up with skeletons and taxidermy in people’s homes, all a part of my childhood heritage. The mounting of animal heads and sculptural busts have a similarity in presentation and it’s a need to monumentalise nature and create totems of remembrance that I explore with these and other works.
I have always felt an affinity to animal symbolism in Jungian psychology – there has always been an underlying mythological, animal theme to my art.

Day Works : Ibis/man study

A purely digital work - one of my pieces explored in my "day works" - part of a series of portrait busts, which look at human animal archetypes, specifically bird and human hybrids. The Ibis image/archetype stems from my early childhood on a farm in Zimbabwe.

Along with the Ibis and its associations to Thoth, the god of the death/underworld in ancient egyptian mythology the image of the Zimbabwe bird has always been a poignant symbol in my mind. I grew up with skeletons and taxidermy in people’s homes - The mounting of animal heads and sculptural busts have a similarity in presentation and it’s a need to monumentalise nature and create totems of remembrance that I will explore with these "day works".

Whale Work : v1.0

When I was away on vacation fishing up on Frasier island- there was a beached whale (Southern Wright juvenile male) not far from where were staying- This piece is going to be a homage to that beached whale, which for whatever reasons beached itself and died, and was later on the higher tides torn apart by sharks. I took photos mostly of the front section of the body, mainly the mouth and converted it into 3D data via 3Dsee which I am reworking and sculpting in 3DCoat - the drawn sketches I have put together have so far been quiet abstract - I don't know at this stage what the final form of the sculpture will take. The beauty of the shape of the mouth that seems to to come into play in the sketches a lot of the times reminiscent of the Whalebone arches used in Inuit building materials for igloos.

Video of work shown on Big Screen Project

The vid:

Big Screen from Jake Hempson on Vimeo.