Project Proposal
In My Head:
My way of coming up with unique ideas either comes from my chaotic, randomly vivid dreams or from daydreams from my waking consciousness. My brain is always thinking, which can be beneficial for the creative but can be a detriment when trying to listen to other people as my mind is always thinking of either new ideas or hashing out my current ones in my head. For my first work, I will be working on my original idea of making a cleaver-like weapon out of aluminum wire, the biggest hurdle is making the hilt of the weapon sturdy enough so It doesn’t flop over when holding it upright, and the second is bending the bundle of wires into a perfect curve as the weapon has a fishbone/Anchor like shape, the title for this work is “Guillotine Cleaver”. Blender has been on my list of things to learn this year as I have had two great ideas for either making a blender animation or just a scene that I can port into Unity to make a walkable environment. The Challenge for this is first picking which of the three ideas I want to do first as each is a rather large endeavour but equally as interesting as a subject, the “Synaptic Osier” is quite simple as it would be a water filled empty environment with mountains as the vista. My other idea is a view from Kubrik Mons on the moon Charon over looking pluto, I could incorporate my last idea of having a lot of scans of my hand and important that into blender and form a flower from the scans. The challenge of this is that it is a rather daunting task that I may just do the landscape as having the skybox of pluto may be too time consuming to make.
Guillotine Cleaver:
Introductory Statement:
The Guillotine Cleaver is the second piece of my line of fantasy weapons made out of aluminum wire, the goal is to make a unique weapon that is both interesting to look at because of the root like aesthetic of the wire, as well as being fun to hold which i found by holding the wire staff i made in last semesters class in one night. The idea is to have a Cleaver like weapon in the shape of an anchor/fishbone like structure, having a second piece that is more ominous and menacing that is also very fun to hold and pose with is a more personal way of engrossing yourself in your work. The weapon could also be scanned and put into blender/unity which is paramount as i plan on doing more with this Cleaver later on in my future endevours.
Matirials and Process/ design and layout
9 gauge wire is quite thick so it is ideal for making larger structures and is relatively cheap off amazon(19.99 cad) which is great for me as each bundle is 52 feet long. Unspooling the wire is the fun cathartic part of the process, its almost like you are unweaving all the negative thoughts in your mind and reweaving a new form a mental tapestry which pairs well with the synaptic theme of my other idea. I believe the best way to bend the bundles of wire that make up the blade section of the cleaver is to use a large round bucket to get the anchor/fishbone like shape. The part i am very concerned about is glueing the bundles of wire down onto the hilt section, the hot glue sticks i have is not the strongest kind of hot glue you can buy so i may just be inclined to buy the gorilla glue brand hot glue sticks and i want this cleaver to be sturdy as it is meant to be held. The idea is to have the bundles on each side of the cleaver and one long bundle and one shorter bundle to create an interesting pattern which resembles the edge of gutting knives, which will make the cleaver quite menacing.
Update:
So after many a trial and error, I have found a good alternative to the initial idea for the weapon I was planning on making. The initial idea of a cleaver didn’t quite pan out as I had intended, the idea of using hot glue to hold everything up just failed as the glue could not hold the weight of the wire up so I shifted back to what worked for the Root Staff. So I started making the weapon using only wire with the exception of two spots where hot glue was used to hold the piece together. The whole sword/cleaver wasn’t working so I defaulted to a spontaneous backup idea: I found I liked the x shape I made with the 9-gauge wire so I figured I could make an axe by wrapping wire around the outer part of the x to create a double bit axe. The more I developed the axe the more I found myself invested in the idea of an axe made of roots, a new name for the weapon emerged from my mind: Thread Flayer, an axe to flay the synaptic thread. The blades of the axe are a little odd looking due to me having to redo them because I wrapped the wire too tight together causing the axe to be misshapen. The Axe as of now is almost complete with one exception which is that the axe needs a couple more wraps of wire to fully cover the holes in the top of the axe.
Tracking:
The idea is to start the hilt section this week, making the hilt sturdy enough is the challenge as it has to be thick enough to not fall over while holding the cleaver. Building with wire is very satisfying just like building with a more malleable Lego.
Budget:
9 gauge wire (19.99 cad) via amazon
Gorilla Glue Hot glue sticks (8.99 Cad)