DaVonte Martin Q2 Benchmark

For our second quarter benchmark, we were told to create a piece of art of our choice. My initial idea was to sculpt an iPod or phone out of modeling clay but I had a change of heart later on in the project. I decided to make a prop from a movie that was featured in Dimensions Film: Spy Kids 2.The prop I wanted to create was a futuristic glove that was used in the movie as a “gadget”. The film doesn’t show a full layout of the glove itself, only portions and pieces of it , so I had to use my imagination to create my own version of the glove. I decided to keep some features of the glove from the movie so it can maintain it’s originality, but I added a few designs of my own. 

Created by DaVonte Martin:

The main material I needed to create the model was an actual glove. At first I wanted to use a normal pair of gloves and then cut the fingers from them to give a more edgy look. However the cotton material of normal gloves wouldn’t look as neat as I would like, so I decided to buy a pair of weight lifting gloves from a department store which were already pre cut. After buying the gloves, I went to gather the rest of my materials. The first aspect of the glove I noticed from the movie was the metal lining which is shown on the palm of the hand. In order to recreate this model, I wanted to use metal stretcher of an umbrella, which is the metal bars along the sides of the umbrella, to represent the metal lining. Before cutting the metal stretcher of the umbrella, I had to first make measurements for my fingers. The metal lining had to be the exact length of my finger. My measurements were as followed:

 

Pinky: 6 cm

Ring Finger: 7.5 cm

Middle Finger: 8 cm

Pointer Finger: 9.3 cm

Thumb: 5.5 cm

 

After making the measurements of my fingers, I had to cut the bar of the umbrella that contained the bendable spring. The bendable spring would enable me to bend my fingers at free will without the need to worry about stiffness in movements. Cutting the metal was the most difficult cutting I’d ever done. 

The tool I used to cut the metal was a wire cutter because I figured it would make accurate precisions. It did, but it took much strength and patience because at first the metal seemed unbreakable. But with a lot of twisting and turning I created 10 metal bars that were equal lengths to my fingers.  After cutting the bars, I decided to hot glue the bars to the gloves because sewing them would only give the bars rooms to fall in random directions.

On the glove used in Spy Kids 2, there were circular pieces of material placed at the tip of the finger that allowed the user to move the metal lining by moving their fingers. In order to replicate this idea, I precisely cut ten 1 cm diameter circles out of cardboard. I used cardboard because it’s material is created in layers so it would be thick enough to look like an exact representation of the glove used in Spy Kids 2.  After cutting the circles, I painted them an “off grey” color so they won’t over shadow the basic design.

While creating the glove, I was given a project in my digital video class to create a commercial advertising a product of our choice. I wanted to advertise my glove and using motion/visual effects replicate the use of the glove in Spy Kids 2. The commercial will be posted within a day because it’s currently being edited.  The glove took two-three weeks to finish so once I completed it, I moved on to another project. 

The next project I designed was the second project of my high school career where I used modeling clay to represent my art. For this specific project I wanted to sculpt a model of an Infiti FX. I wanted to create an Infiniti FX because it’s one of my favorite cars and the design is different from most current SUV models. Before sculpting my car, I had to allow my modeling clay to soften. This process had taken three-four days because the size of the modeling clay. I started softening the clay by filling a clothes bin with warm water, at least five gallons. After filling the bin up with water, I sat two 13’’ blocks of modeling clay into the water.

After four or five days the clay was soft enough for me to mold. I started by creating the basic shape of the Infiniti FX. After allowing the clay to harden a bit, I used a sewing pin to add small features to the car as in the roundness of the bumper, and curves to the door. The next week, I deciding to make the tires. I created the tires by rolling modeling clay into a ball in my palm. Once the clay was shaped in a sphere, I slowly flattened the sphere so it can resemble more of a tire. Once I had a basic shape, I used my finger to create the depth of the tire. Once I’d finished creating five tires using the same method, I used the wheel of an actual toy car to create the ridges of the tire wheel. With the left over clay from the wheels, I made two rear view mirrors. The rear view mirrors had to be proportional to the SUV, so I had to make at least several different models before sticking the final model to the SUV. After creating the wheels and mirror, I used two sewing pins to stick the wheels to the side of the SUV. I did this for two reasons: One, they were almost guaranteed to stay on the SUV without any problems and two, the pin allowed the wheels to turn as if they were real. After sticking the wheels and mirror on the SUV, it was time to paint. Since the modeling clay was still soft after leaving it in warm water for so long, I had to wait at least a week for the clay to harden completely. After the clay hardened, I painted it after school in my art studio. 

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