I started today just experimenting and trying to figure out how to use the software. I found it pretty fun to work with and watched a few videos to try and get the hang of it. I like the potential that there is to work digital especially in lockdown, even though I’ve never worked digitally in the past.
The first assemblage I did I started with a bunny and was just exploring. It was very fun and I started to see that it was resembling a mythical creature that’s name slipped my mind. I tested out importing different objects from within meshmixer and from other sources. Also tried out using different tools to warp the object.
From there I moved on to an otter. I was testing a few of my 3d objects as there were a few that didn’t work. I started adding other shapes to them and deleting body parts. I like the very alien look of the product.
After that creation I decided to start with a plain sphere abd see how I could change it. I imported a rose that I had found elsewhere and used tge drag tool to draw it out. I added a potted plant to the bottom and a human head to the front and used the expand tool to make it bumpy. I think it looked quite gross but I like it. Im excited to continue.
It started to bother me that I couldnt remember the name of the cryptid that my first work reminded me of, so i started a googling journey. That lead me to the wolpertinger of germany that was exactly what I was looking for but there was a particular taxidermy that spoke to my soul
From here I started a hunt for more taxidermy of mythical creatures. I started to think about how really a lot of mythical creatures are described as sort of assemblages. “It had the head of a lion the feet of an eagle and the tail of a snake” and they are made real by our speaking them into existense.
This lead me to think about the ways in which we describe things that are beyond our comprehension. A lot of mythical creatures came from the descriptions of foreign animals. I then remembered a thread I saw a while ago that was making fun of the art of medieval monks.
I was thinking about how a lot of these things that have taken hold in our imagination as monsters are actually real animals that have been misinterpreted through the years and in turn we have made the descriptions real in their own right.
Artsteps
Unfortunately I wasn’t able allowed to access Artsteps. I talked to James about it and he said to just make sure that I write a note on my blog. If I was to do an installation I would probably want to play with size and scaling and also repetition of objects.