The goal of this project was to build a sculpture out of masonite with the ideas of interconnectivity in mind. When approaching it, I had three shapes in mind, with different variations.
First I started with these basic shapes and brought them into illustrator. After doing a few test cuts, I ran into some problems and had to make adjustments. For example, after my first test cut I realized that the horizontal plane pieces had a hard time staying in place. In order to fix this, I extended the connecting pegs and rounded the ends of the pegs.
Below is the shape from the first test cut (left) and the adjusted shape for the second test cut and final cut (right), followed by cut and painted pieces of these shapes:
I also found that my upright pieces needed some adjusting after my first cut. Not only were my slots different distances from the top and bottom edges, but also the innermost slots shifted with the curve in the piece. This was problematic for the specific composition of the pieces I had in mind, so along with making the piece at a larger scale, I also had to fix some spatial issues.
Below is the shape from the first test cut (left) and the adjusted shape for the final cut (right):
After finalizing my shapes and cutting them, it was finally time to make the decision of color. I knew I wanted blue as a main color, and decided that yellow might look pretty good with it. So I got two shades of blue paint and yellow. After painting the upright and plane pieces shades of blue and painting the circular pieces yellow, it was time to assemble. It took some struggling to assemble the core structure, the blue pieces, now that there was a layer of primer and paint on the pieces, but they finally came together. However, as soon as I added a yellow ring to the blues, I realized that I had made a mistake in color choice.
I took some photos and brought them into photoshop to see which color might look best to replace the yellow. I edited to see how green, red, or orange might look. I decided that orange was the best way to go, and repainted all my yellow pieces. The orange is a much more successful color choice.
Provided below are photos of smaller scale prototype for this sculpture, before and after being painted:
