yiyangla@andrew.cmu.edu – 99-361 A: Inflatables

04/25 Cloud Team – Final Project Update

yiyangla@andrew.cmu.edu — Mon, 25 Apr 2022 14:41:16 +0000

This week we refined our cloud shape by fixing some wrinkles. We also sewed our eyeball again. Because last time we traced its patterns, some pieces were not at the same size. The following pictures are from our rehearsal on Friday.

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We plan to add some LED lights inside the eyeball this week and finish up all the work.

Push/Pull Part I — Yiyang Lai

yiyangla@andrew.cmu.edu — Fri, 25 Feb 2022 01:57:39 +0000

This first object takes a primary form of a sphere. I added a yellow ‘hat’ at the very top and a white ‘tail’ at the bottom. The white ‘tail’ is supposed to have some curvature in itself to make it look more interesting. I put two pieces of rectangular shape fabric together, with one piece much shorter then the other one. It turns out to have some curvature when the object is set on a table. When lifting in the air, however, the curvature is not as obvious. A possible improvement can be made by putting wires inside the white ‘tail’ part so it stays rigid and the audience could interact with the ‘tail’ by bending it. Two ‘eyes’ are sewed on to the black sphere. That is where I closed the whole object. It is interesting because I was not thinking to have them look like ‘eyes’. Lots of people commented that this object looks like a penguin. I might work towards that direction in the future.

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Push/Pull Object 1

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The second object is my favorite. It takes a rectangular shape as its primary shape. I put three layer of different fabrics together to make two wrinkling pieces. It probably does not turn out well because the wrinkling effect I want to have is not very obvious. For further improvement, I could iron those fabrics first and sew them afterwards. I then attach these two pieces on to the primary shape and pulled it with a strong string. The button was attached later on to the knot where that strong string came through. My favorite part about this object is that two attached pieces. I appreciate how the light shines through the green web-like fabric and how its texture differs from the rest. I also like the detail of this one. The wrinkles near the button (picture 3) and the tension at the side (picture 4) show how the fabric deforms under pushing and pulling.

Push Object 2

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The third one is my Rhino piece. I made a mistake when assembled the bear’s head and body together. Lots of people told me that this mistake was actually interesting and had its own artistic value. Probably it’s because I am an engineer, I find it super hard to convince myself this mistake is not just a mistake. I am so used to build or solve problems with steps and try my best to avoid mistakes. And I definitely should try to work with some randomness and enjoy that. I spent around 7 hours on this object since it had so many pieces. I also lost several pieces so I had to laser cut again to make up for that loss. Some possible improvements can be done in the future: better and more patient sewing, colorfulness, take care of my pieces and so on.

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Push/pull object 3

Yiyang Lai — Out in the world

yiyangla@andrew.cmu.edu — Tue, 01 Feb 2022 18:48:19 +0000

I am not sure if this is a valid topic, but I want to share it with your guys — The Dolls. They are not regular inflatables sex dolls. They are much more expensive and constructed with aluminum alloy bone structure and silicon skin to mimic human body shape with movable joints. Their costs ranging from 2k to 5k.

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I would call them soft sculptures instead of sex toys, because out their in the world, especially in ACG (animation, comics and games) circles, lots of people buy these sculptures for cosplay or they just enjoy changing nice clothes for dolls. Besides all these, these dolls often weight more then 30kg (66 pounds) and are pretty fragile.

I find these soft sculptures amazing because I never realized how detailed they could be. Picture 2 reveals some detail of the doll’s (in picture 3) hands. And there are people making a living by doing makeups for those sculptures. Picture 1 is taken from a painter’s house who was doing makeups for dolls’ heads to make them more alive. There are people (especially girls) enjoy dressing those sculptures up and it is just amazing to see how beautiful they could be.

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China now is producing and exporting majority of these sculptures. All pictures in this post are found from Chinse companies. I also found several company pages that demonstrating more dolls. But please be careful, though I do not recognize these sculptures as sex toys only, they still have the function of sex toys. If you do not feel comfortable then perhaps do not open the link.

DS Doll Robotics

Reference:

https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1Q4411w7ap?spm_id_from=333.999.0.0

Yiyang Lai — Improvisation Inflatables

yiyangla@andrew.cmu.edu — Tue, 25 Jan 2022 22:28:54 +0000

I create three improvisation inflatables.

No.1 is made of totally randomly cut pieces. I find it is hard to tape these pieces together because they are too random and too small. It took me over four hours to just fit them all together. I also used my own tape for No.1 and this tape was not very steady. I put it on my floor overnight and the next day I woke up, all those tapes fell off and I had to re-tape them again to take photos (and that was painful).

No.1 was not very ‘successful’ since its inflatability is not as good. Due to the bad tape quality and too many small pieces, it was hard to have it sealed. Air leaked out pretty quick and I failed to having it as expanded as I desire. But still, this one is my personal favorite. I love its colour and how it reacts under light. Since I used transparent tape, the overlapped area gives No.1 a different taste under sun light. At the same time, No.1 is the most usual shape among all my works. It looks like a shoe under certain angle.

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I used some plastic bags from Giant Eagle on No.2 (I live somewhere near Giant Eagle and I have tons of bags at home). Plastic bags from Giant Eagle have a very different texture than those given bags. I learnt from No.1 so this time I cut pieces much larger than the first one. And I intended to keep the word ‘Giant Eagle’ visible. I also used some band-aids on No.2 because there are holes on plastic bags. This one expanded larger than No.1.

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I ran out of tapes for No.3 so I used a mix of blue duck tape and my own transparent tape. Since I want to record a video of expanding process, this one had a much simpler shape and made of four pieces in total. It turned out to be really successful! It looks like a jellyfish.

Today’s weather is great so I take a picture of sun light piercing through No.3 (it is probably not related to this but I hope you enjoy it).

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The biggest challenge is mainly on No.1. It had air leaking issue and too many irregular pieces. The biggest takeaway from these three inflatables is its unpredictable shape. I intended to make No.3 look that way but I did not plan anything for No.1 and No.2. It is just amazing to see them forming into random shapes.