pete's things

Before we get into the blog post, I’d like to give a content warning for mild injury (no blood).  Music is incredibly important to me, and often use it as a way to define myself. I am a guitarist, singer, and a music teacher. I’m incredibly passionate about the bands I like. (My favourites are All Time Low, Story Untold, Set It Off, and As It Is.) I can also be a huge music nerd at times.  To reflect this, I decided to make a miniature guitar, modelled after my own electric guitar (which I painted as an art project last year). Originally, I thought it would be cool to be able to play a little tune on the paper model. Elastic bands could work for relatively low-tension strings, and paper clips would probably secure them well enough.  I had a great idea of what song I could play, too: Cinderblock Garden by All Time Low, or at least the start of the riff. Even before I started learning guitar, I knew I wanted to learn that song, and it’s still one of my favourites to play. In addition to

 Zim & Zou are a duo of French artists who specialize in papercraft. I particularly enjoy their fungi inspired village, part of Forest Folks. I love this sculpture for a number of reasons. A mushroom city is just so wondrous and fantastical. The variation in scale, between the tallest fungus in the back and the smallest house on the stump, further adds to the whimsical atmosphere. I love the restricted colour scheme; I think the reds, pinks, and oranges go wonderfully with the greens and teals. All of the patters and bright saturated colours remind me of a cartoon, despite the sculpture being very real. But I think my favourite detail of all is all the little folks scattered about. I love their simplicity and almost blob-like structure. On their website, the artists share that the work is about nature’s power to grow and evolve. Nature, especially plants, is incredibly important and has shaped the world we live in today. It is important to be able to coexist with the powerful force

For my digital papercraft samples, I wanted some sort of theme to link my models together. I chose to make models of fruit. I guess you could say they're like me, pretty fruity ;) This was the first model I did, and I inwrapped it by hand. The stem is a separate net. I also unwrapped this one by hand, because the program I was using kept doing funny things, making parts of the net overlap :/ This one was pretty fun to make, because of the geometry. I tried to make it more planned, more regular, and less random in the shapes I used. I also tried to make this one more regular in shape. I used concentric hexagons, allowing me to use quadrilaterals rather than triangles, for most of the net. While making this one, I realized I could have been a lot smarter. Had I used a different strategy to create the sides of the melon, I could have made the sides big, flat, strangely shaped planes, as opposed to many triangles. But you live and you learn I guess. I also unfolded this one by hand, an

I really liked the whale brush I made, and decided to tune it up a bit and give it some better renders. I also wanted to give it a better title, so I present to you... Watercolour.  Along with rendering the whale brush better, I smoothed out the paint on the end of the brush. I also added textures and more detailed materials, as well as some snazzy lighting. I love the shininess of the paint and metal of the brush, as well as the subtle pattern on the whale. I wish I could have figured out how to better texture the end of the brush. In the 2nd and 4th photos, you can see the pattern didn't quite map how I wanted it to. Despite that, I'm very happy with how this came out. Finding a better name was hard too. I considered Bhale for a new name as well, but in the end, Watercolour won. I love the idea of this whale, and I think it would be super neat to see it soaring through the sky in some fantasy art world or something. I hope you enjoyed, and I’ll see you next time     - Pete