Project Resilience: Figure It Out!
Noah Smeets and Justyce Palmer
A collaboration between SintLucas Eindhoven & Valencia College
🏁 Debriefing Figure it out 🏁
-
For this project we’ve been given the opportunity to work with a public institution based in Orlando, Valencia College. We’ll learn how to use 3D design and printing. Each student will team up with someone from the other country. Together, we’ll create an action figure focusing on stereotypes. We’ll learn about each other's cultures by reading a certain book about American and Dutch stereotypes called "The Xenophobe's Guide to the Americans” and "The Xenophobe's Guide to the Dutch".
Here's what we’ll do:
• Learn how to use Blender to design 3D toys and packaging.
• Combine what we learn in class with real projects.
• Work with students from other programs to learn from different perspectives.
• Challenge stereotypes by working with peers from other countries.
• Present our work to show how international collaboration benefits our education.
Deliverables:
• A 3D action figure made in Blender.
• Packaging for the figure designed in Illustrator or Photoshop.
• A final presentation about their collaboration.
Self improvement:
For this semester I’ve written down some points on how to improve my communication between teacher/client and student.
• I keep my teachers up to date and ask them for help if needed.
• After debriefing an assignment I ask for feedback
• I let my teachers/clients know if I’m sick and ask them if I’m able to work on anything regarding the project.
Questions concerning Valencia College:
1. What are some common misconceptions about college life in the United States?
2. How do you unwind and relax after a busy week of classes and studying?
3. What are some popular hobbies or activities among students at Valencia College?
4. Are there any popular sports or athletic events in Orlando that students typically participate in?
5. What are some common financial challenges students face in Orlando?
6. How does climate change and environmental issues impact life in Florida?
7. What stereotypes do you think exist about us dutch people?
8. Can you share any memorable experiences from your time living in Orlando?
9. Do you have any experience using adobe?
Answers given by Justyce:
1. A few misconceptions are that professors are hard to approach, all classes have you listening to lectures, and college involves lots of parties.
2. I unwind by playing video games, watching YouTube videos, and chatting and scrolling through social media
3. To name a few, there's a couple clubs that Valencia College offers. Some are chess, criminal justice, cyber security, dance, and debate.
4. I'd say football is a popular sport among us students.
5. Student debt is a common issue for us in Orlando.
6. The weather here is mostly sunny, but it does tend to be close pretty cold at times, like during the holidays. Also it can get pretty hot here too during the summer.
7. To be honest, I haven't had any thoughts on stereotypes about Dutch people. Not including the videos I was shown in class on Tuesday.
8. I've really enjoyed being able to go to the amusement parks Disney and Universal.
9. Yes I do. I've used Illustrator and Photoshop before as well as some other Adobe software (edited)
After exchanging information about ourselves (names and such) and going over the deliverables for the project, we decided to go with the American stereotype. I mosty did all the asking and unfortunately my partner wasn't that interested in me so I decided not to pry any further or ask them about their life in the US.
-🏁- Ideas & Sketches -🏁-
The process of coming up with concepts and ideas was quite troubling for me. I literally had to squeeze the ideas out of my partner and keep asking for them. In the end he did decide to give in and told me some of the ideas he came up with. Unfortunately, he did not make any concept art for it.
My ideas:
-Cowboys or something cowboy related.
-Alligator (something like Godzilla) on skyscraper.
-Rat on a railway or concrete.
-Hollywood-like set (actrice with greenscreen and huge camera).
-Car wash guy with spinning board.
-Person sitting on arcade machine holding lots of arcade tickets.
-American football player throwing an alligator over his shoulder.
Down below there are 2 concepts I sketched out.
Justyce came up with two ideas, either a taxi or a chef with a pie. In the end we decided to go with the taxi idea. I made the concept art for our taxi down below.
Taxi's are quite popular in the US, especially in New York. While coming up with a design, I found the car to be a bit bland. In order to give it a bit more personality, I decided to add a popped tire and boot to the wheels. I also wanted to give the base of the model some sort of road-look, hence why the pavement and asphalt roadway. During my research on American roads, I noticed they're all cracked and the pavement mostly exists out of these big tiles (which are also cracked).
We discussed our options and came to the conclusion to go with option number 2 as our final design.
After we decided on a final design, it was time for me to make the front, side, above and back views of our designated design. At this point we also choose to split up our work; Justyce would be working on the packaging for the rest of te project and I'd be using my time modeling the Taxi cab.
-🏁- Process -🏁-
Halfway through my modeling adventure I realised just how bad of a job I did while making the turnaround views and therefore decided not to use them as reference anymore. Hence why the concept art differs from the actual 3D Model I made.
-🏁- Renders -🏁-
-🏁- 3D Model with Textures -🏁-
The textures were made in Substance Painter 3D. The following icons were made in Photoshop.
-🏁- 3D Model for printing -🏁-
In the end I did have to add a support mesh to connect the base to the car, otherwise the 3D printed model would've probably caved in the moment it was printed. I also scaled it down to a more suitable size.
-🏁- Packaging from Justyce -🏁-
-🏁- Personal Reflection -🏁-
I've had my ups and downs during the process of this project, but in the end, it came out even better than I expected. One of my weak points has always been communicating with others, which is probably also one of the reasons why I was even put on this specific project. I've learned A LOT throughout the last few weeks. Communication skills aside, I've been making a lot of progress regarding my capabilities with Blender and other 3D related software. Even though I was a little wary of our concept at first, I'm very glad we went with the Taxi idea, not only because it was something where I had to step out of my comfort zone for (which was also the whole point of this project) but because I would have never gained the knowledge I own now, if I had just gone with a simple character that I had to sculpt. I now possess so many more skills than I had before, of which I'm extremely proud.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Even though the communication factor didn't go as well as I thought it would, Justyce and I managed. We stayed in contact, discussed our choices and feedback. We both held up our end of the project, and we both got a great result out of it.
Needless to say, I think this project went very well!
