Hello! Thank you for viewing my Constructions and Props portfolio. Here you can find a selection of props and sets I've built both for animation and personal use.
--------------------------- Bright Ships ---------------------------
Now that's an odd color palette!
It's rare to see space vehicles in bright colors, so I wanted to build a couple bright-colored ships for myself. These ships are mostly built out of foam core, cardboard, construction paper, and bits of wood.
The second ship from the left ended up being used as the train in my animation "Commuting in Orbit".
This ship was built entirely from rearranging the pieces from a battleship model kit. I wanted to try adding details with a pen before adding a clear coat to give some hand-drawn style to it. I decided to make it an agricultural ship and named the ARS Dandelion.
----------------------------- Miniatures ---------------------------
Small things and casting tests.
I made the pieces above for use in tabletop games. The originals were modeled in plasticine and cast in clear resin. They were painted in gouache and given a spray clearcoat. They've been getting bi-weekly use for two and a half years and the color's still holding!
This small structure was made from bits of pottery and sea glass from the coast.
Since it's mostly comprised of sea glass, it actually carries light very well. One day I would like to see if i can hollow out the space for a small lamp inside it.
This ship was first modeled in sculpy and baked to create a more durable original. The ship body, side and back fins, and base were all made separately and cast in two-part plastic.
These are two castings from the same mold that I used to test different palettes for the same ship. For the design I took some inspiration from tugboats and ferries, specifically having the front edge padded with rubber tires. On the second casting I painted the ship in a similar style to the ARS Dandelion.
--------------------------- Afternoon Challenge: Electronic Collage Ships ---------------------------
In my school's stop-mo fabrication room, there is a bin entirely full of discarded bits of electronics. I decided to see how many ships I could make over an afternoon entirely using pieces from this bin.
While I was working on a stop-motion project, one of the big lamps I was using burnt out. I loved the shape of the bulb, so I kept the dead bulb and used it as the base of this ship.
I built this ship off a simple rectangular plastic cover. There was a small container of cut audio jacks and I liked the effect of them bending around the corner and connecting to each other.
The first part I found for this one was the damaged and cut metal plate. It looked a lot like a heavily damaged shield to me, so I built a kind of cruiser off the back of it.
The bin contained a lot of these small electrical transformers and ribbon cables, so I wanted to make that a main design focus for this one. It was a fairly meditative process to build these ships; I was hardly thinking of what part of the ship was the top or front until I was just about done with it.
--------------------------- Other Pieces ---------------------------
This was my set for my animation "There and Back". The animation is focused entirely on observing this set closely, so I took the time to have a variety of textures in the set for light to play with. All of the walls and ceilings are detachable. The floor is made of actual ceramic tile (cutting the tile was hands-down the toughest part of the build.)
This shuttle "bus" was my first foray into 3d printing. the ship was modeled in Blender, printed in a white PLA plastic (which is easy to see in the small test print) and painted with enamel model paint.
This swampy cabin is made with spare foam core and cereal box cardboard. I used this to test methods for repeated elements (like the cardboard roof tiles and foam core stone bricks) as well as practice painting and weathering a model. The inside is hollow and can easily fit a small light.
