The first inflatable I made was a cube with a handle. I wanted to start out simple with the primary forms we’ve learned in class. Originally, I planned to have protruding semispheres pop out from every face of the cube, but I had cut the pieces too small, so they ended up fitting perfectly. This made my cube look like a quirky die with one dot on every face. When I was about to sew the object up, I realized that it may be a bit too empty as just a cube shape, so I added a cylindrical handle (without the circular top and bottom faces). This was a good decision because it made this object more interactable and you can hold it on your arms or carry it like a shoulder bag. In general, this first object was a test trial and the hardest part was holding the circular pieces together with a million pins when I was sewing them on the cube.
This snail-like object is the second one that I made. This is the most improvised piece out of the three that I created. At first glance, some people thought it was a squirrel, which I found interesting because I never intended it that way and I never saw it that way. I am content that it created “confusion” and made people curious about what the true form was. In the beginning, I wanted to use this brown fabric to make a teddy bear form. I had a pentagon sphere pattern and two circular cutouts prepared. However, when I was sewing the pentagon sphere pattern together, I wasn’t paying attention to which edges I was working on, so it ended up being a shape like a half-moon. For the two circular shapes, I sewed them together and it formed a flattened sphere. I realized that these two could come together to form the snail shape and that is exactly what I did. Afterward, I used some scrap fabric and buttons to decorate my object. The most difficult part of this object is sewing the two forms together because I hand-sewed that part and was trying to make it so that the object does not tip over.
The last object was created through Rhino. I had a hard time with the software so I didn’t make something too complex. My idea was a seashell shape and I added heart-shaped embroidery on top of the final object to decorate it. The theme I had in mind was “a seashell delivering love.” It turned out that I was unable to make protruding circles in my first object but this one had that protruding feature. This object is fun to hold in my opinion and whenever I have it in my hands, I just want to throw it like a football. That is an unexpected effect that the form has. My object was pretty small so it was really difficult to sew it on the machine. I had to hand sew most/all of it. I found hand sewing a lot easier and more enjoyable because I could see the form come together slowly. And the satisfaction of hand sewing is just different from the sewing machine.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1UbFceLnluVOHH-P4O5LeupZCL8M_76dz?usp=sharing