Outcome

Aesthetic + Inspiration

  I find humor in the design of items such as a cactus-shaped pin-cushion, or pizza-shaped coin purse. The design of the object and the way it is used go hand-in-hand. I was inspired by such projects in my own design of a whale-shaped pencil holder. 

While exploring whale-shaped objects,  I stumbled upon this image of a whale-shaped ottoman. I used this image as my starting point for the aesthetic and design of the object. 

Process + Procedure

First, I sketched my process by hand. I drew the whale form and the cross sections at every inch (the total length of the body is about 7 inches). Given that I wanted to use the Loft feature in Fusion, this step helped me visualize what my cross sections should look like and how they should vary throughout the body.

After this step, I moved on to creating the object in Fusion. An outline of my steps is as follows.

1) create body using sketches and offset planes (offset by 1-0.5 inches)

2) “Loft” to create 3D body

3) create 1 side of the tail using sketches and offset planes

4) “Loft” to create 3D tail

5) mirror tail so that it is symmetric about the major axis of the body

6) join tail and body in “Combine”

7) create hole on the top face of the body

8) thicken

I encountered a couple of challenges throughout the process.

First, I had some difficulty with the cross sections. Sometimes the cross sections would result in a bumpy form (after the loft), other times the cross-sections would violate the requirements of loft. I addressed this issue with trial and error. Instead of drawing all of the cross sections and then choosing “Loft”, I checked the integrity of the form along the way. After each sketch, I lofted everything I had up to that point.

Second, I struggled with creating the flute in whale’s tail in the “Loft” feature. I soon realized that a single loft would not allow me to create a form with diverging end points. To resolve this, I created one half of the tail, and mirrored this about the plane co-linear with the axis of the body.

Reflection

Through this project, I learned a good amount about using Fusion and CAD software, simply by encountering errors and figuring out how to resolve them. In future projects, I will know that systematically figuring out how to model an object and drawing these steps by hand - before using Fusion - can be a significant time-saver. Additionally, I would like to become more comfortable with combining different features and work space functionalities in Fusion. Hopefully next time, I will use a combination of Loft, Sculpt, Sweep, and other features to create a design efficiently and elegantly.