Create an enclosed interior space inspired by an existing structure or style of architecture.
Begin by researching a specific building, architect, or architectural style and use that research as a starting point for your design. Possible styles include Art Deco, Mid-Century Modern, Brutalism, Gothic, Neoclassical, Prairie School, Victorian, and many others.
At our next class meeting, be prepared to briefly discuss the architecture you are researching. You should be able to identify the building, architect, or style you have chosen and explain a few of the visual characteristics that you plan to incorporate into your space.
Before that class meeting, upload several image examples of your chosen architecture to the class Google Drive folder. These images should clearly show the visual qualities, forms, materials, details, and spatial characteristics that interest you. We will use these examples during our class discussion.
Consider the architectural spaces you encounter every day. What makes a space recognizable as belonging to a particular time, place, or style?
For this project, you are creating the inside of the space, not the exterior. Build the environment primarily using simple geometric primitives, and use proportion, repetition, composition, materials, and lighting to establish the character of the space.
The goal is not to reproduce an existing building exactly, but to understand and reinterpret the visual language of an architectural style through 3D modeling.
Turn in at least three rendered still images that clearly communicate the space.
Final image resolution: 1920 × 1080 pixels @ 72dpi.
For this assignment, you will create a virtual still life that transforms ordinary objects into something surreal, uncanny, or fantastic.
Choose three everyday objects that you can closely observe and model. At least two should have organic or irregular forms, such as fruit, food, plants, bones, clothing, body-related forms, or other naturally shaped objects.
You will 3D model and texture each object as convincingly as possible. Once the objects are complete, use them to create a surreal composition in which their normal appearance, scale, material, function, or relationship to one another has been altered.
Your final scene should use at least three forms of transformation, such as:
extreme changes in scale
repetition or multiplication
impossible materials
hybridizing two objects together
stretching, melting, slicing, or deforming forms
objects passing through or growing from one another
gravity-defying arrangements
unusual lighting or atmospheric conditions
placing familiar objects in impossible environments
The goal is not to find unusual objects. The goal is to make ordinary objects become unusual through 3D modeling, composition, and transformation.
Create a final composition inspired by Surrealism, Hyperrealism, Cubism, or a combination of these approaches.
Turn in at least three rendered still images showing your final scene from different views or variations.
Final image resolution: 3840 × 2160 pixels @ 72dpi.
What might the world look like in the year 2075? Most of you will be around 70 years old by then, so this is not an abstract future — it is a world you may actually live to see.
For this assignment, you will envision and 3D model a product, object, environment, or scene from the future. You may choose to focus closely on a single designed object or create a larger snapshot of everyday life in the year 2075.
Begin by looking at the last 50 years of technological, social, environmental, and cultural change. Use that history, along with conditions that exist today, to make an informed speculation about what the next 50 years might bring.
Consider questions such as: What products might people use? What might transportation look like? How might humans communicate, work, entertain themselves, travel, eat, live, age, or wage war? What problems might future technologies solve, and what new problems might they create?
Your future does not need to be optimistic. It may be utopian, dystopian, damaged, resilient, strange, or somewhere in between. But avoid relying only on familiar science-fiction clichés. If your future is difficult or unstable, think about what people would still build, use, repair, value, and live with inside that world.
The goal is to create a future that feels imagined, but also believable enough that it could have evolved from the world we live in now.
Your project should demonstrate thoughtful modeling, materials, lighting, composition, and attention to detail.
Turn in at least three rendered still images that clearly communicate your idea.
Final image resolution: 3840 × 2160 pixels.
After these initial assignments are complete, you will be expected to create a digital artwork, or series of works, from your own personal artistic interests. The concept of the series should inform the way they are presented. I will meet with each of you to help determine a directed program of study and techniques necessary for you to realize a significant work of digital art that you will be proud to display.
Each student will give one presentation on an artist whose work makes significant use of 3D modeling, digital fabrication, or related digital processes. You may choose from artists listed in the course links or find an artist of your own.
Begin by reviewing the artists and resources provided in the course materials, but feel free to research beyond them. Additional research using reliable online sources and/or library resources will be necessary.
Your presentation should be 10–15 minutes long and should include images of the artist’s work presented to the class using PowerPoint, Google Slides, or a similar format.
Your presentation should address the following:
Who is the artist, and what are the primary ideas or concepts behind their work?
What is their general philosophy or approach to making art?
How does 3D modeling or digital fabrication function within their practice?
How does their 3D work relate to other work they have produced, including work made without 3D modeling?
How might the ability to model something virtually before producing it physically affect the artist’s process, decisions, materials, scale, or final form?
Do not simply provide a biography or list of exhibitions. The goal is to help the class understand how the artist thinks, how their work is made, and what role 3D modeling plays within their larger artistic practice.