RYUJINLAB, INC Launches Low-cost Metal 3D Printing Service for General Public https://ift.tt/3fGUfnx 3D printing technology company RYUJINLAB, INC is launching a metal 3D printing service for the general public to access, the first ever in Korea. 3D printing using plastic infused FFF (Fused Filament Fabrication) technology started to be distributed to the general public in 2012. Since then, the global 3D printing industry has grown rapidly and increased by approximately 30% every year. This has led to fierce competition in technology and product development across the 3D printing industry, allowing people to use more diverse materials at lower costs. FFF 3D printing can now use dozens of color materials, such as PLA (an eco-friendly material), more commonly used ABS and PETG, as well as elastic and ductile materials. Furthermore, the texture of sculptures can be expressed more diversely using wood, bronze, and brass-like materials. Where more detail is required, liquid resin can be used to make a more precise object for 3D printing (a.k.a. resin 3D printing). Costly technology and material that were reserved only for industrial 3D printing has been made increasingly more accessible to the general public. However, general users are still limited in terms of their creativity production activities. The threshold for some industrial materials and technologies is still high. It’s a similar story in the metal 3D printing industry. High-powered energy is required to 3D print metallic materials. Because of this, metal 3D printers use high-power lasers or high-energy ion beams as energy sources, and the cost of equipment installation and operation is very high. In general, users have to pay 10 to 100 times the cost of FFF 3D printing to print a small metal sculpture using the conventional metal 3D printing methods. Such high costs diminish the advantages of 3D printing and thus don’t allow for ‘design without limitations’ or ‘low quantity customization’ and have also become an obstacle in supply of 3D printing. To eliminate this “high-cost” obstacle, RYUJINLAB, INC has been conducting research on low-cost metal 3D printing for several years and presented its achievements at the ‘Inside 3D Printing Conferences & Expo, Seoul’, which was held from November 18. The end user sends a STL or OBJ extension file to RYUJINLAB, INC, they will then create a green part made of Metal Filament: Ultrafuse® 316L (made by BASF Germany) using a RYUJINLAB, INC developed FFF 3D metal printer. After that it goes through a de-binding heat treatment and sintering process. The final metal part that consists only of Ultrafuse® 316L material is then sent to the end user. A Ultrafuse® 316L metal sculpture measuring approximately 13mm in width, length and height (refer to figure below) would tentatively cost 70,000won for the end user.
“In recent years, Desktop Metal and Markforged have worked hard to create products that allow access to metal 3D printing at a lower cost. However, it’s still quite a high cost for Korean users who usually use low-end FFF 3D printers,” Tony Park, Vice President of Business Development Division of RYUJINLAB, INC said. “We want more people to actively use 3D printing. 3D printing is an excellent manufacturing method that reduces overproduction and thereby makes the global environment a little better because it efficiently utilizes and distributes resources throughout the whole process of development and production. RYUJINLAB, INC. has continued research and development on 3D printing technology to bring its vision of ‘Flexible & Affordable Manufacturing for All’ to life and are putting in effort to make it easier for the general public to use a variety of materials at lower costs. The ‘low-cost metal 3D printing service’ (beta) is part of this effort. We are pleased to be able to provide an improved 3D printing experience for Korean users. We will carefully monitor the service during the beta service period and improve on any inconveniences experienced by the end users to ensure we can provide full service as soon as possible.” As of 2019, Korea’s 3D printing industry is a USD 377 million market, of which the market for 3D printing services is worth USD 88 million, a 23% growth compared to 2018 which is the highest growth among sub-segment markets such as equipment, materials and software. There is focused attention on how RYUJINLAB, INC’s new metal 3D printing service will resonate with the general public as they are well renowned for being market leaders in low-cost, high-performance resin 3D printers in the past 5 years. *RYUJINLAB, INC: Participated in the market for 3D printing service and education since 2014. With the introduction of their very own LIPS (Light Induced Planar Solidification) technology in 2016, RYUJINLAB, INC successfully pioneered the market by applying LIPS to MORPHEUS, the largest 3D printer in its category under USD 5,000 in the world at the time. Since then, the resin 3D printer sector, which had been with the only technology of DLP/SLA, has led the development boom of LCD-applied low-cost resin 3D printers, allowing more users to use high-end resin 3D printing at lower costs. BASF: The world’s largest chemical company headquartered in Germany. In 2018, they released a metal filament compatible with FFF 3D printers and are innovators in the 3D printing service market. WEBSITE : WWW.RYUJINLAB.COM CONTACT : [email protected] Printing via 3DPrint.com | The Voice of 3D Printing / Additive Manufacturing https://3dprint.com November 27, 2020 at 07:25AM
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Jordan Hill https://ift.tt/379EW2Q Growing up in an active and adventurous family, Jordan Hill found her passion for all things outdoors from a noticeably young age. Her very existence revolves around exploring; from her backyard and climbing mountains, to colour and shape in her artwork. It is her strong appreciation and connection to the world around her which has become the driving force behind Jordan’s artistic output. In 2016 at 18 years old, Jordan began her journey at Limerick School of Art and Design. At first studying Fashion Design, she later took the leap and transferred to the printmaking department in LSAD in her second year. Here, she ran wild with the freedom to experiment and explore a vast range of media and process. Given Jordan’s adventurous background, it’s a given that her artworks are strongly influenced by the outdoors. Initially, she worked with photographs of the wild Irish landscape she so often found herself exploring, layering those images with abstract forms and textures through the way of mono-printing, cyanotype and drawing. Later, she abandoned the image, focusing wholly on the abstract form itself, taking on a much stronger intuitive approach to her work. It was in her final year of college when Jordan began to unlock the potential of screen printing. Jordan’s works combine numerous processes and media, and for this reason, each piece is entirely unique. “I do this to mirror the landscape. You can visit the same place day after day yet have a different experience or perspective of the landscape each time” says the printmaker. Jordan’s work is deeply rooted in the untamedness of the rural Irish landscape, and reflective of her fond childhood memories of exploring. Jordan’s work is consumed by the process of creation itself. On the surface it’s playful; Jordan pulls on her experiences, recalling the emotions and energy she felt out in the wild as she explores different brush strokes and marks, while facilitating an ongoing conversation between colours. She states; “To a viewer, these colours may not appear to be connected to nature, but each colour has a purpose within my work, providing a visual stimulation and instilling a sense of wildness in them”. Jordan graduated from Limerick School of Art and Design in 2020 with an honours degree in Fine Art, specialising in Print Contemporary Practice. She was awarded the Cork Printmakers 12 Month Bursary Award, where she is now a member, continuing her practice and beginning her artistic career. www.hillxprints.com Printing via People of Print https://ift.tt/2DhgcW7 November 27, 2020 at 03:59AM
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AFTER LIFE (We Survive) https://ift.tt/36clkM2 Over at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA) in San Francisco—and online, wherever you are in the world with an internet connection—a new exhibition asks how the visual arts can help marginalised groups “survive and thrive.” The show, titled After Life (We Survive), is billed as “a multimedia public art experience” that explores both speculative and real modes of survival developed by artists “in response to ongoing racial injustice, environmental collapse, health disparities, and loss of homes and land impacting communities of colour.” The show feature works by ten “Black, Brown, Indigenous, Queer, and Trans” artists and collectives, who present their proposals for a future in which there’s more support for “LGBTQ, Indigenous, Latinx, Black, Asian, and Pacific Islander communities in the Bay Area and beyond”. These proposals also examine how to amplify the voices and works fo such communities and their grassroots activism. The show was orchestrated by curator, writer, and assistant professor of ethnic studies and gender and sexuality studies at the University of Massachusetts Boston Thea Quiray Tagle, who first presented AFTER LIFE at Seattle’s The Alice Gallery in 2018. “The question that drove the exhibition was: How have Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders, and Indigenous communities practiced modes of surviving after ecological disaster and after political violence?” she explains. With the new iteration of the show opening just after the US presidential election, it now pushes the idea that “We all need to be asking ourselves how we can truly transform the systems and structures that continue to harm our communities, beyond an election cycle and for generations,” Tagle adds. “AFTER LIFE (we survive) is an archive of freedom dreams, that we can draw on for inspiration as we continue that necessary work.” The pieces in the show are largely created in multimedia, interactive formats. This medium offers a multitude of creative ways for the artists to explore, mourn and memorialise survival strategies that communities have used in the past; such as in the pieces by Micha Cárdenas, Courtney Desiree Morris, and FIFTY-FIFTY artist collective. Cárdenas’s work takes the form of an immersive Augmented Reality video game Sin Sol / No Sun, which can be seen as a 15-foot high projection on the side of the YBCA Forum building and “invites users to follow her avatar, Aura, as she escapes wildfires and navigates safety as a trans-Latinx, disabled femme.” Courtney Desiree Morris keeps things a little more traditional, showing her photographs from the 2019 series Solastalgia, which act as a “mourning diary” of family and homeplace in Louisiana—a place suffering under flooding, drilling and various other natural and unnatural disasters. One key theme of the show is Indigenous contemporary art and collaborative practices. Take Art 25: Art in the 25th Century’s 2019 series Future Ancestors, for instance, which comprises large-scale photographs presented in combination with sounds and dialogue from Black and Indigenous queer voices. Another such theme is queer futures, explored by artists including Zulfikar Ali Bhutto with the piece Tomorrow We Inherit the Earth (2020) which “takes us to a queer Muslim future via two rocketships, Grace 298 and Mercy 258,” apparently. The full list of collectives and artists featured is: alejandro t. acierto; Art 25: Art in the 25th Century (Lehua M. Taitano & Lisa Jarrett, with Jocelyn Kapumealani Ng); Jeremiah Barber; Zulfikar Ali Bhutto; micha cárdenas; Coven Intelligence Program (Margaretha Haughwout, Suzanne Husky, and efrén cruz cortés); FIFTY-FIFTY (Lisa Bulawsky & Laurencia Strauss, with Dimitry Saïd Chamy); Courtney Desiree Morris; Super Futures Haunt Qollective (C. Ree, F. Sam Jung, and Angie Morrill); and Rea Tajiri. AFTER LIFE (we survive) can be simultaneously experienced in-person and online with 3D walk-through alongside exclusive digital content, artworks, programming, and artist-curator conversations until 24 January 2021 Printing via People of Print https://ift.tt/2DhgcW7 November 27, 2020 at 03:17AM
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Manzi https://ift.tt/2HIjbhQ What did an extraterrestrial say to a fancy trumpeter and a nudist sitting at a bar counter? Well, probably nothing. But you may find them all having a drink together in Guilherme Manzi’s work. This Brazilian Graphic Artist and Illustrator creates an interesting blend of daily themes with absurd elements. Taking inspiration from minimalism, pop culture and, of course, graphic novels, Manzi’s resulting works deconstruct design with strong lines and crazy character anatomies. He divides his time between developing his own artistic projects and working as an Art Director at advertising agencies, continually taking influence from graphic design concepts.
Lately, Manzi has been dedicating himself to another thing he is crazy about: 2D animation. As he has already developed some experimental animated short films, he is now studying to develop his skills as a director and animator. Manzi believes that we are not alone in the universe and sees in science fiction a way to explore human smallness. Printing via People of Print https://ift.tt/2DhgcW7 November 26, 2020 at 07:34AM
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Ootrey https://ift.tt/3l8nQHm Ootrey combines great designs with beautiful materials and print finishes. The brand is the brainchild of Matt Taylor, who owns and runs York-based print company, Colour Options. Their range of notebooks and prints have been created in collaboration with established and emerging designers, including Drew Millward, Xanthe Bonsall and Monique Graham. Created by design industry-insiders, every Ootrey product has been lovingly crafted and produced using materials from leading paper houses, including Fedrigoni, G.F Smith, Fenner Paper and Arjowiggins, and printed by Colour Options. Like many print companies, Matt has been experiencing a quiet period brought on by the pandemic. Wanting to do something to prevent his press from being idle whilst supporting the design industry, he worked closely with graphic designer, Lee Goater, to develop the brand identity and bring his idea to life. Through the sales of the products, Matt intends to support designers, artists and illustrators on an ongoing basis with regular collaborations. Stationery and design lovers can shop the range at www.ootrey.co.uk. Printing via People of Print https://ift.tt/2DhgcW7 November 26, 2020 at 07:34AM 7th Material from Sinterit: The Widest Range of Materials in Small SLS https://ift.tt/2V6PtWW PA11 ESD is the first SLS 3D printing ready powder with ESD functionality available for the accessible SLS 3D printer Lisa PRO. The flagship PA12 Smooth used for standard prototyping was supplemented by PA11 Onyx, which thanks to its high-performance characteristics is widely used where super thermal resistance is required. PA11 ESD follows this path. This 7th material in Sinterit’s portfolio, thanks to the heat resistance and ESD functionality, is perfect for electronic casing or test fixtures for electronics, and also for all of the fixtures for electrostatic dissipation. It is the new opening for ATEX connectors and parts, which could be safely produced on small SLS 3D printers. A wide range of applications is fulfilled with Sinterit’s flexible materials. There are three different Flexa TPUs and one Rubber TPE.
His department is constantly improving current materials and working on new ones, and as he assures, it is not the last word.
The part of Sinterit’s readiness for implementing new materials is linked with the possibilities given by a nitrogen chamber, the integral part of every Lisa PRO SLS 3D printer. It changes the printing environment, supporting the use of more materials. It is also the uniqueness of Sinterit, as there are no other printers in the small SLS market with such functionality. Sinterit consistently develops SLS technology. Their Lisa printer was the world’s first small SLS, available at a price that opened this technology to the wide specter of companies worldwide. Currently, Lisa and Lisa PRO SLS 3d printers are not stand-alone devices but are a part of a whole additive manufacturing solution with peripheral post-processing equipment and the widest range of materials on the market. Printing via 3DPrint.com | The Voice of 3D Printing / Additive Manufacturing https://3dprint.com November 26, 2020 at 07:04AM 2020 Stopping Cyber Monday? Not Hardly! https://ift.tt/3fzBiTv Nov. 25, 2020 2020 Stopping Cyber Monday? Not Hardly!Ship your gifts in your PJs; the Postal Service has you covered WASHINGTON, DC — Even under normal circumstances not everyone can get together for in-person celebrations. But this year has been anything but normal. As a result, many are resorting to shipping gifts and relying on video technology to bring them together for all of their holiday festivities. And while we can’t fix your tech issues for the video celebrations, we can ensure your gifts arrive in time for the fun. No matter what you order on Cyber Monday, or throughout the holiday season, you can Click-N-Chill with the Postal Service as We Deliver for Yule. Don’t feel like going to the Post Office to drop off your special gift? You can stay home, cozy, and socially distant by going online. Visit usps.com or use the Click-N-Ship feature for help shipping that special holiday gift, ordering free Priority Mail boxes, printing shipping labels, purchasing postage and even requesting free next-day Package Pickup. And usps.com is always open. 2020 Holiday Shipping Deadlines
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*Not a guarantee, unless otherwise noted. Dates are for estimated delivery before Dec. 25. Actual delivery date may vary depending on origin, destination, Post Office acceptance date and time, and other conditions. Some restrictions apply. For Priority Mail Express shipments mailed Dec. 22 through Dec. 25, the money-back guarantee applies only if the shipment was not delivered, or delivery was not attempted, within two business days. To send packages to loved ones serving in the military or at diplomatic posts abroad, the Postal Service offers a discounted price of $19.60 on its largest Priority Mail Flat Rate Box. The price includes a $1.50 per-box discount for mail sent to APO/FPO/DPO destinations worldwide. To handle this year’s holiday shipping, the Postal Service is expanding Sunday deliveries in high package volume locations. Mail carriers will also deliver Priority Mail Express packages on Christmas Day for an additional fee in select locations. Busiest Week Holiday Advertising Campaign The first of several TV spots began airing mid-November and can be viewed on USPS-TV. A direct mail piece with information customers need to know for the holidays will be mailed to more than 100 million homes by Thanksgiving. The Postal Service also offers shipping tips in 10 video “how to” guides. Each video is less than three minutes long and shows how to address packages, ship packages and pack a box so items arrive safely. Mail and packages weighing more than 10 ounces and/or are more than a half-inch thick cannot be dropped into a collection box or left for a carrier to pick up if you’re using stamps for postage. Instead, take them to a retail associate at any of our Post Office locations. Additional news and information, including all domestic, international and military mailing, and shipping deadlines, can be found at the Postal Service Holiday Newsroom: usps.com/holidaynews. The Postal Service receives no tax dollars for operating expenses and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to fund its operations. ### Printing via USPS News https://ift.tt/2hH9aDC November 25, 2020 at 09:02AM
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Australian Navy Starts Pilot Program with Large-Format WarpSPEED Metal 3D Printer https://ift.tt/3664LRK Australian metal 3D printing company SPEE3D, based in both Darwin and Melbourne, specializes in large-format additive manufacturing, and says that its technology is the fastest and most economical metal AM in the world. SPEE3D quickly caught the eye of the Australian Defence services, and just a few short years ago, the company teamed up with Charles Darwin University (CDU) to found the Advanced Manufacturing Alliance (AMA), a worldwide center of excellence for real world 3D printing applications. The Australian Government then invested $1.5 million into a two-year pilot of SPEE3D’s metal AM technology for the Royal Australian Navy, and SPEE3D, CDU, and the AMA have been working hard to deliver the pilot program. Thanks to this previous government investment in an 18-month pilot of SPEE3D’s technology for the Royal Australian Navy, a world-first trial of its large-format metal AM is now commencing at HMAS Coonawarra Navy Port in Darwin. The Fleet Support Unit (FSU) at HMAS Coonawarra has installed the massive WarpSPEE3D, with its 265 mm high nozzle, at the port.
A large part of Defense Force costs around the world go towards sustainment applications, which is the repair, maintenance, and overhaul (RMO) of equipment. It was already hard, and expensive, to move spare parts through the regular supply chain, and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic hasn’t made this any easier; however, it is at least shining the spotlight on an existing issue. Many advanced manufacturing technologies are too slow, expensive, and delicate to offer any real help. But SPEE3D’s 3D printing solution, which the company claims is the only large-format metal AM trialed and proven to be deployable in the field by Australian Defence, can handle it. The WarpSPEE3D printer can manufacture large parts, up to 1 x 0.7 m, that weigh up to 40 kg, at a rapid rate of 100 grams per minute. With this recent installation, the Royal Australian Navy is the latest of the country’s Defence services to have the ability to create their own metal parts with on-demand 3D printing. Quote request Are you looking to buy a 3D printer or 3D scanner? We're here to help. Get free expert advice and quotes from trusted suppliers in your area. Powered by Aniwaa The Australian Army recently put SPEE3D’s large-scale WarpSPEE3D printer to the test in a series of successful, award-winning field trials in a very remote part of the Australian outback. These trials were also funded by the Australian Government, and including training in design, parts certification, hardware, and more for CDU 3D printing engineers and Army craftsmen. As a result, the Army can now print and finish a variety of parts in the field on their own much faster and more rapidly than the existing supply chain could handle. It’s expected that this new pilot program with the Royal Australian Navy will also yield some very positive results. This new Australian Defence trial is meant to use 3D printing to streamline patrol vessel maintenance, as well as increase the amount of parts to which the Navy has access. (Source/Images: SPEE3D) Printing via 3DPrint.com | The Voice of 3D Printing / Additive Manufacturing https://3dprint.com November 25, 2020 at 08:32AM Playstation, 3D Printing, and the Future of Manufacturing https://ift.tt/3m4EmcV Filling an Industry 4.0 conference lineup is easy. Getting a lot of people excited about lights-out factories is also quite easy. It seems to be a simple way to get governments to part with their money, as well. But daydreams of digital twins and automated production are just that for most folks. Or Industry 4.0 is construed to be some far-off future wonderland like IoT and electric cars. Well, not like electric cars at all, in fact. That seemed fanciful, and futuristic, and out there only a few years ago. But, now, electric cars are very real and not in a “they exist but only for the wealthy” kind of way. Through the work of Elon, the car industry has been dragged into the electric age kicking and screaming. Whereas Tesla’s (TSLA) market cap at $461 billion is staggering and maybe optimism is being directed at rays of light in a dark time, it says a lot how one trailblazing example can influence an industry. Now, car companies are announcing when they will go all-electric, many new vehicles are coming to market, and GM has a web page where it states that, “General Motors’ vision of a world with zero emissions will be powered by a future where every vehicle is an electric vehicle.” This is an abrupt change from when only a short while ago electric vehicles were a curiosity, a sideshow that car companies did as a sop to environmentalists. I doubt that we will get such a resounding and successful example in 3D printing and Industry 4.0 to power us all toward a warp-speed development so suddenly as has happened in electric vehicles. But we will eventually get more and more good examples of lights-out factories and automated production in the developed world. One of the best I’ve seen was just announced by Sony. Nikkei Asia reported previously that the company has developed at 31-meter line that can make two Playstation 4 consoles a minute. Wiring, motherboards, and parts are all assembled by robot. The company even has multiple robots working together to wind and place wire, wind and crimp cables, apply tape and perform all manner of groundbreaking tasks. Four people are on the line, so its not completely automated, but this is a huge step toward that idea. A staffer is quoted as saying, “There’s probably no other site that can manipulate robots in this manner.” The highly automated factory is in Kisarazu, near Tokyo, Japan. Only part of the total Playstation production will take place in Japan, but that the company would turn to such a highly automated solution for a relatively inexpensive product that sells in the tens and hundreds of millions is quite a breakthrough. Good at welding and painting, industrial robots have traditionally sucked at delicate manipulation and assembly tasks. That the company devised methods to apply tape and manipulate wiring is also revolutionary. From welding toward the finicky is a huge step. At the same time, we can see that, along with machine learning and machine vision and machines like COBOTS, engineering new specific equipment for specific tasks still makes sense in a “universal robotics” age. It’s also notable that several inexpensive robotics startups aimed to solve the complex task of packaging products. Several of these firms have gone bust and, even now, Sony has four employees on the line, two of which package the Playstations. Some seemingly “easy-to-replace” tasks, therefore, may actually be hard to do. On the whole, however, the highly automated local manufacturing solution that Sony has opted for here is a harbinger of a local production future. One interesting element of the article is that Sony “pushed the engineers at the Kisarazu site to improve productivity. The refined production tech was then transferred to contract manufacturers” and “[w]hen a console nears the end of its marketable life, the model will inevitably fall victim to declining sales and price competition. Production lines are able to maintain profitability thanks to constant improvements.” That to me is a very significant piece of information. Up and until now, most of the full automation discussion has pitted an “everything manufactured in Europe by robots” future against a “nearly everything is made in China” present. Previously on the 3DPOD, we’ve discussed hybrid forms of production whereby US automated factories with 3D printers will be supplemented by outsourced production. Could the same make even more sense if we consider the Sony example? What if the client firm has production so that they can aid and optimize outsourcing firms? What if all forms see this kind of a Kaizen approach together with some local, in-house manufacturing as the key to the future of profitable and accurate manufacturing operations? Through thoroughly understanding their own manufacturing challenges, some wholly outsourced firms now would be able to find significant value in their current outsourced applications. Printing via 3DPrint.com | The Voice of 3D Printing / Additive Manufacturing https://3dprint.com November 25, 2020 at 08:02AM
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Caitlin McCarthy https://ift.tt/2HyGoTo London-Based 2D Animator and Director, Caitlin McCarthy studied Illustration at Camberwell, where she first began her foray into the creation of strange video art (a metre-wide silicone slice of ham, for instance). Today, she works as a director on commercials and videos for brands, alongside her personal projects. Upon graduating and realising “oh yeah i did that course cause I like making pictures”, Caitlin started to draw more and experiment with 3D Animation. After meeting Parallel Teeth, she ended up switching over to 2D Animation when she collaborated on his music video for I’m Easy by Merk. Caitlin went on to work on a variety of projects for Parallel Teeth, Anna Ginsburg, and other directors at production company, Strange Beast, who supported her to make more of her own work, and eventually signed her up as a Director too. Alongside the constant creation of “stupid little Gifs” to post on her Instagram in-between projects, Caitlin has been working on a short film, BREAKFAST, which was made in just over a week during the first COVID-19 lockdown; “with no planning, just to see how quick I could make a film”. Currently, she is also working on her first ever comic; “I am so used to working with moving image, that it can be really intimidating to try to get everything perfect in one single still”. She says; “A lot of my work is sort of half-autobiographical, I take a bad experience/aspect of my personality and blow it out of proportion until it’s funny, which I guess is a therapeutic thing for me”. Her work is hugely inspired by movies, in particular those of Todd Solondz; “they’re often quite debauched and depressing in storyline, but bright and cheery aesthetically”. As a child, with a “tacky shopping centre” not far from the home she grew up in, Caitlin collected cheap hair clips and robotic toys as a form of entertainment. This experience continues to influence her work today, with plasticy colours and cutesy drawings a characterising feature of her aesthetic. She further comments; “The internet is also a major source of inspiration. Obsession itself is a bit of an obsession for me, and there are so many hyper-specific subcultures online that are fascinating to look into”. Once she has a brief or idea for a project, Caitlin usually starts with “really basic ugly doodling and notes”. Her next step is usually character design; “That’s my favourite bit so I like to tie down what the characters will look like first”. She then creates an animatic; a storyboard that’s been timed out, and once all the shots have been planned, she’ll make style frames for each of them. “A style frame is like a snapshot of what the finished animation will look like, so this is when I decide on a colour palette for the piece, and what sort of textures I’m going to use” explains Caitlin. Once the design phase is done, she gets on with the long old slog of animating, and colours everything frame by frame. “On commercial projects, I’ll usually work with a crew of animators and colourists who are super skilled so we get the best looking result for a client; but I usually work alone on personal projects. I like breaking animation rules and just doing things kind of slap-dash” states the animator. Although it’s not the the ideal setup for animation, Caitlin creates her works in Photoshop, using the Animator’s Toolbar extension by Patrick Deen to make it a little friendlier. “I do like that it doesn’t have any built in animation presets, so you’re forced to do things properly frame-by-frame, no cheating, and that makes the animation look more natural and hand-made” comments Caitlin. It is for the same reason she colours everything in by hand; “I think it’s sort of funny that I lengthen the process for the expressed purpose of making it look worse (or at least less smooth) but that’s how I like it”. She also uses a Wacom Cintiq rather than a tablet to draw, “…cause it’s a little more like drawing on paper”. Caitlin’s ultimate dream is to work on a music video; “It’s like a rites of passage for animators that I still haven’t achieved”, and we’re excited to see the short film she’s hoping to soon realise “about a bowling alley and a home made sex/voodoo doll”. Printing via People of Print https://ift.tt/2DhgcW7 November 25, 2020 at 07:57AM |
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