Pittsburgh Arts, Regional Theatre, New Work, Producing, Copyright, Labor Unions,
New Products, Coping Skills, J-O-Bs...
Theatre industry news, University & School of Drama Announcements, plus occasional course support for
Carnegie Mellon School of Drama Faculty, Staff, Students, and Alumni.
Prop Agenda: Last week I got a call from Triad Stage, a theatre over in Greensboro, NC, to do some carving for the scene shop. I had done some foam carving in the props shop last autumn, and when another project came up, they thought of me.
I think trying to create a three dimensional piece with identical sides would be a great challenge, especially if it is being made of material that is not necessarily mold-able. I noticed he had grid lines drawn from points and dropped over to the face opposite the side the side he was drawing on. It reminded me of the drafting we have been doing to create models and I wondered if there was any way to cut a pattern of shapes in the column, though I imagine it would be rather difficult to do. I also admire his frugal use of glues since the column would be seen from far away.
This seems like it would be a good way to combine props and drafting class. I agree with Jacquelyn that this sounds like a rather challenging project since there is so much repetitiveness, it would be hard to keep a constant depth where you were not able to use the router. And working with the ball foam is so frustrating. I think if i we're doing this project I would have gone the additive route rather than subtractive. It seems like that would give you more sculpting freedom and allow room for error, but I do enjoy reading how someone else would go about something. Although I didnt really learn anything new this time, I have learned quite a few good tricks that way.
I agree with April and Jacquelyn that this would be such a huge challenge to make all the sides symmetrical, as well as combining drafting and props class. I think its very interesting the different tools that were used, and that it was mostly done with a snap knife. I also like how they used joint compound at the end to give it a smooth texture, i don't know if i would have thought of that. I agree with April, I'm not sure why they chose to carve it instead of build it, because when building something it's easier to fix mistakes. If one side is too small, you can always add to it when you're building, but if one side is too small when you're carving, you just have to make the other side smaller. I suppose to be able to carve something like that out of foam means having a lot of confidence in your ability to get it right the first time.
This seems like an intriguing challenge, though I am thoroughly surprised by the choice in foam. That white foam is so hard to cut and even harder to smooth out that it seems as though using pink foam would have been a better approach. Well it would have required more glueing separate foam pieces together, the carving process would have been drastically simpler.
I wonder if as they went about carving it, they continually redrew in the shapes which they were carving out? It seems that it they didn't, their initially patter would be carved away quite quickly and they would be looking at a blank canvas all over again.
This article was really interesting to me. I have been wondering for a long time how complex, symmetrical set's are carved. The only way that I know how to do this is to use a CNC router. But now I understand the basics of carving foam by hand. I'm very impressed by the skill it must take to make something this complex and this large. I hope that at some point here at CMU I will get a first hand chance to try carving foam. I do think that people with these skills may start to become few and far between as CNC technology becomes more wide spread. The one change I would make to this article is to add a video of the actual carving, because only a sentence or two were spent on the carving it's self.
Neat! I think they sculpt props the subtractive route because it would look smoother and less sloppy than a capital made out of several small parts added on to one another. It's kind of like drawing class where we build up shadows; instead, in sculpture, we take away little by little until it all works well together. In this specific capital, I was a little confused because they sculpted all four sides. From what it sounded like, the capital had one side facing away from the audience. I was just wondering why they would sculpt a side that would not be seen. But maybe I'm missing some information. I saw an opera production of Orfeo e Eurydice at the Phoenix Opera, and they too had sculpted columns. They were HUGE!I wonder how many layers of foam they carved, and I wonder if there is a limit to how much foam you can stack before it looks like foam instead of the object.
This is kinda cool. It looks like it would be more tedious then difficult but it must take a lot of concentration. I like that he includes the decisions he made to get the price down, and why it was acceptable to simplify it due to its location and relative importance. This isn't really all that different from what we are doing in Studiocraft where we take a 2d drawing and transfer it onto a 3d shape. Although he got to skip the first part and just replicated the 3d block a whole bunch.
THIS IS SOOOOOO COOOOOOL. i actually really really really want ot make this. i find carving projects like this to be extremely difficult and fun. the fact that this is styrofoam is extremely impressive becaue foam is normally very hard to make smooth. the amount of detail that went into this is super great too! this whole thing would be a great thing to mold and make replicas of. i completely agree with jacqualyn in that the idea of it being a 3D object is a really hard idea to replicate ezpecially when all of the sides are most likely going ot be the same.
8 comments:
I think trying to create a three dimensional piece with identical sides would be a great challenge, especially if it is being made of material that is not necessarily mold-able. I noticed he had grid lines drawn from points and dropped over to the face opposite the side the side he was drawing on. It reminded me of the drafting we have been doing to create models and I wondered if there was any way to cut a pattern of shapes in the column, though I imagine it would be rather difficult to do. I also admire his frugal use of glues since the column would be seen from far away.
This seems like it would be a good way to combine props and drafting class.
I agree with Jacquelyn that this sounds like a rather challenging project since there is so much repetitiveness, it would be hard to keep a constant depth where you were not able to use the router. And working with the ball foam is so frustrating.
I think if i we're doing this project I would have gone the additive route rather than subtractive. It seems like that would give you more sculpting freedom and allow room for error, but I do enjoy reading how someone else would go about something. Although I didnt really learn anything new this time, I have learned quite a few good tricks that way.
I agree with April and Jacquelyn that this would be such a huge challenge to make all the sides symmetrical, as well as combining drafting and props class. I think its very interesting the different tools that were used, and that it was mostly done with a snap knife. I also like how they used joint compound at the end to give it a smooth texture, i don't know if i would have thought of that. I agree with April, I'm not sure why they chose to carve it instead of build it, because when building something it's easier to fix mistakes. If one side is too small, you can always add to it when you're building, but if one side is too small when you're carving, you just have to make the other side smaller. I suppose to be able to carve something like that out of foam means having a lot of confidence in your ability to get it right the first time.
This seems like an intriguing challenge, though I am thoroughly surprised by the choice in foam. That white foam is so hard to cut and even harder to smooth out that it seems as though using pink foam would have been a better approach. Well it would have required more glueing separate foam pieces together, the carving process would have been drastically simpler.
I wonder if as they went about carving it, they continually redrew in the shapes which they were carving out? It seems that it they didn't, their initially patter would be carved away quite quickly and they would be looking at a blank canvas all over again.
This article was really interesting to me. I have been wondering for a long time how complex, symmetrical set's are carved. The only way that I know how to do this is to use a CNC router. But now I understand the basics of carving foam by hand. I'm very impressed by the skill it must take to make something this complex and this large. I hope that at some point here at CMU I will get a first hand chance to try carving foam. I do think that people with these skills may start to become few and far between as CNC technology becomes more wide spread. The one change I would make to this article is to add a video of the actual carving, because only a sentence or two were spent on the carving it's self.
Neat! I think they sculpt props the subtractive route because it would look smoother and less sloppy than a capital made out of several small parts added on to one another. It's kind of like drawing class where we build up shadows; instead, in sculpture, we take away little by little until it all works well together. In this specific capital, I was a little confused because they sculpted all four sides. From what it sounded like, the capital had one side facing away from the audience. I was just wondering why they would sculpt a side that would not be seen. But maybe I'm missing some information. I saw an opera production of Orfeo e Eurydice at the Phoenix Opera, and they too had sculpted columns. They were HUGE!I wonder how many layers of foam they carved, and I wonder if there is a limit to how much foam you can stack before it looks like foam instead of the object.
This is kinda cool. It looks like it would be more tedious then difficult but it must take a lot of concentration. I like that he includes the decisions he made to get the price down, and why it was acceptable to simplify it due to its location and relative importance. This isn't really all that different from what we are doing in Studiocraft where we take a 2d drawing and transfer it onto a 3d shape. Although he got to skip the first part and just replicated the 3d block a whole bunch.
THIS IS SOOOOOO COOOOOOL. i actually really really really want ot make this. i find carving projects like this to be extremely difficult and fun. the fact that this is styrofoam is extremely impressive becaue foam is normally very hard to make smooth. the amount of detail that went into this is super great too! this whole thing would be a great thing to mold and make replicas of. i completely agree with jacqualyn in that the idea of it being a 3D object is a really hard idea to replicate ezpecially when all of the sides are most likely going ot be the same.
Post a Comment