This week...

This week has consisted of lantern making, learning, x factor and autumn walks. As my CRB has just cleared, I haven't been able to start work yet. I'm hoping to hear from them on Monday with when I will be starting.

To keep myself busy this week I have been trying to learn some Sketchup add on packages. This week has been IDX Renditioner, it is really simple to use and gives a completely different look to my designs. The only problem being my laptop, it is getting up to 4 years old now and with its lack of hinges and over heating fan it doesn't cope well at all with any form of rendering software. Its making it really hard to learn how to use this properly but I will carry on. Even if Sketchup does "bug splat" a LOT! The time has come for me to start saving for a new laptop :( Something I have been trying to avoid.

I volunteer each week in the Halewood Arts Association, one part of that is the Junior Artists Club. I love it, its a group of 7 - 12 year olds and they come along each Wednesday and get to do lots of creative things. On the 31st October we are taking part in the Liverpool Lantern Companys Halloween Lantern Carnival. (if you are looking for something to do on Halloween come along, they put on an AMAZING show and I can't wait to see / been involved in it.) So this week we had a really nice woman named Becky come in from the LLC and me and her helped the children to make some lanterns for when we go along. We used bamboo and masking tape to make the frame work and it was really fun. Some of the bamboo is a bit tempremental and can snap quite easily, but once you get into it, it becomes really easy to use and very flexible. There was jellyfish made, fish, dolphins and squid. We are adding the paper to them this week and I'll add some photos once we do.

Sefton Park in the Autumn is lovely.

Model Making

Finally I have begun model  making, this is one of my favourite parts of the course and now I have everything designed I can get really stuck in to what I enjoy.

I have mentioned in previous posts that I am creating a 1:25 white card model of the whole exhibition and selecting four, 4x4m areas and creating them in colour to get across the textures and feel for them areas.

I used sketchup to print out all my plans at 1:25 and I am going to build my model up from that. It was scary seeing how big the plans where and I had a "slight" panic, but after some encouraging talks from tutors and coursemates I feel like I can do this!

I am working on the Liverpool area at the moment and I am very excited to be making a shop with the family name on. My Nan is going to love it!

A brick making technique that didn't work as well. I'm trying to create an antique brick effect and this technique of using milliput smoothed on didn't work at all.

I found putting lines of milliput on one at a time and working in to them gave a much better look and although time consuming gave the effect I was after.

I'm hoping once I start to paint the bricks they will look a lot better.

Reflection

I have been trying to work on my reflection area of the exhibition for a while now. This area of the exhibition has become really important, it will give an end to it and allow the visitors to really reflect on what they have been through.

I was originally going to have a room filled with photo frames, some with digital screens inside. The visitors would get their photograph taken at the beginning of the experience and at the end their faces would appear in the photo frame wall of visitors. This was to try and get across how many people survived and how many people didn't  make it on the long journeys.

After working it out though, the exhibition is designed to have 10 visitors in each group, staggered by 15 minute tours. That equals 40 visitors an hour and at least 320 a day. Meaning I would have to have a lot of photo frames around.

I really like the idea of including the photos of visitors and after a lot of thinking and mulling over I have came up with my final design. The final room is to be filled with hundreds of thin rope hanging from the ceiling to the floor. The majority of them will be blue, with the occasional red rope mixed through. Visitors will have their photograph taken on a polaroid at the beginning of the experience and asked to keep that in their bag of belongings when they arrive. When they reach the reflection area, they will be asked to take their picture and write a sentence that sums up their experience on the back. They would then pin it to a blue rope if they where an emigrant who survived and a red rope if they where an emigrant who didn't survive.

I want this to be something that the visitors can use to really reflect upon their visit, the ropes will be hanging so the visitors can move through them, touch them and look at the faces and sentances of the other visitors.

I created how I want it to look in sketchup and I'm really happy with the outcome.

I'm on a boat!

It's finally getting there, after a long night of getting it to work and hours of making rope nets, it's finally getting there. HAPPY.

Getting Closer!

It's getting so close to hand in now and its really starting to hit home that *fingers crossed* I'm going to have a degree soon. With all the talks about the degree show and peoples plans for after Uni it's getting very scary.

I have been focusing on my sketchup model this week, I want as much of it complete by Monday so I can get on with model making. Once the model making begins the late nights and kick drinking will begin.

My sketchup model is really coming together now. I still need to work more on the textures, as I am not fully happy with them yet, but zone 2 is really starting to feel like a ship now. Here are some images of Zone 2, they are without the textures at the moment

The white zig zag area above is a new section to the exhibition I have added. It gives the visitors the opportunity to see how bad conditions where to begin with before any regulations where put in place. The sleeping area was originally 4-5ft, as this would be quite claustrophobic I have made it an optional section to the exhibition letting visitors choose themselves whether to go inside.

My newly designed bunk beds, the original set I designed where far too small and after making a white card model version of them I realised that it wouldnt work. The bunk beds also faced the other way and from more research I found ships avoided having bunk beds facing side ways, as this made sea sickness even worst.

 

This is the beginning of the eating area. None of the textures are in place at the moment and there is more items to be added. Chains where added to the tables and the beams to avoid tables constantly flipping when the ship got rocky. I am really happy as it is all starting to come together now. 

 

Sketchup update...

I have been working on filling the storage area and adding the bits of detail to Liverpool that will make it seem more realistic. I described it as looking more normal today, only to be told "if it looks normal it must look bad. So hopefully it is looking a little bit more 'realistic' now. Definitly not more normal.

Update

As I'm still at the museum, I am not doing as much work as I could be, I have been working a lot more on my sketchup work. Here is a few more pictures...

I'm back in Liverpool...

Very busy week, with visiting and working it has been a very stressful week. I had my first day in the museum which went really well! But I will blog about that when I am finished.

I am slowly getting there with putting my design into Sketchup.

As you can see I am very far away from being finished :( But I am slowly getting there, here is a close up of some of the areas getting closer to completion. A lot more development is needed still.

Love it or hate it...

Sketchup. Most people are split with this programme, its like the marmite of our course. With me it is definitly love hate. At the moment I am loving it! It is really helping me to see the scale of my area and putting some of my initial designs into it is really helping me to decide what works and what doesn't!

At the moment I am still in the very first stages with the above model, the coloured walls are just to remind me of the different zones. Being able to add textures and test out my ideas is coming along great.

I hope to have a lot more going on in the street, the lodging house and government office will obviously be filled and come to look like actual buildings, I hope to have a shop and traders in the street.

I was having a few problems trying to recreate the Port with the space I have, however I found a great photo of the port and think this would look great blown up on the wall labelled port/dock. I could even use a wall painting of this.

Lisa came up for a chat yesterday and I basically talked her through my whole design and idea. Was a really good help and talking through the whole thing and getting really excited has spurred me on to do even more. I am very positive about the final thing now and with my many time management list I really feel like I can do this!