Project 6 Self Portrait

 

I am not the biggest fan of Blender.  In comparison to other 3D programs, it is unintuitive when it comes to basic movements and navigation.  Multiple times I had a tool not work at all and then I would restart the program (on three different computers) and it would finally work.  For being a free program, it is a wonderful tool when an intermediate user, in my opinion.  However, as a beginner, I was "frustrated" with not being able to portray my ideas as easily as in other programs I have used. 

 

Despite being new to 3D programming in this sense, I decided to rely heavily on my artistic side.  What I sort of like about the outcome of this project is how imperfect it is.  If I had been givena paint brush or pencil, I'll openly admit I would have a realistic portrait of myself as a result.  But Blender had stripped me of my talents and threw me into a world I am not familiar with.  So, in a sense, it took opening a new door (or clicking on a foreign program's icon) for me to realize I need an imperfect self portrait of myself- because who is perfect? 

 

After hours of many trial and errors in building a self portrait, and refusing to do a very simple representative item of myself, I decided to scuplt a face from a UV sphere...and after about twenty tutorials later, I resulted in the above images!

 

I almost left the portrait of me colorless, to portray that a computer would view me as a simple, gray sphere stripped of color- because we, as people, percieve so much more than computers.  However, I like an idea that I heard when watching The New Aesthetic: that we are presenting our culture to technology.  We have to teach technology our ways so they can reflect it back.  So I made the decision to make my representation of myself a gumby-green.  I loved gumby as a kid and it falls into the roots of digital media, stop motion with clay.  So I'd like to think of myself as starting in the roots of art and working my way out to the complex and infinite branches that it has to offer, whether it be digital media, painting, drawing, or any other form I'm interested in.

 

The only other 3D program I have worked with is SolidWorks, and the engineer side of me prefers that much more than Blender.  But maybe it's not so much the mathematics it involves but rather the fact that I actually know how to us it!  Blender, however, was a trip to learn and I enjoy the scuplting tool very much!