process
Steven Schk-lne
invited JEN ZEN( to work with his proprietary software at the
Caltech Multi-Res Modeling Lab. "Featured in Emerging
Technologies at LA SIGGRAPH 1999, Surface Drawing© is unprecedented,
fostering free conceptual thinking in translating motion into
form. Steven is shown using a CyberGlove( in the interactive,
semi-immersive, 3D environment of The Responsive Workbench.
Stereoscopic CrystalEyes( glasses provide illusion of depth
that make freehand drawing strokes appear to float in space."
(Schk-lne S., Pruett M. and Schr-der P., "Surface Drawing:
Creating Organic 3D Shapes with the Hand and Tangible Tools"
Proceedings of CHI 2001.)
JEN ZEN( invited Sheriann Ki Sun Burnham to
collaborate in pushing Surface Drawing© in a direction
for which it was not intended. Next to the Responsive Workbench,
the artists built a temporary platform for drawing live models.
Wearing CrystalEyes(, Sheri traced Judith Moncreiff (a respected
digital art pioneer) from head to toe with the CyberGlove(
- politely avoiding tickle spots. Coordinating head/hand distance
and movement minimized apparent multiple perspective distortion.
Eliminating movement of the stereoscopic glasses yielded greater
"realism", so JEN ZEN( chose not to wear the
glasses while drawing Tyler Stallings. Instead, the CrystalEyes(,
were taped to the ceiling above the model, which established
a fixed vanishing point for motion capture. In the spirit
of traditional blind contour drawing, the intention was not
to look at the virtual form as it was created, but to focus
on the interactive, kinesthetic aspect of cybertouch drawing.
The curious 3D form created was alien, anthropomorphic but
not human.
Different views of the Tyler figure are
central characters in digital prints "BADWATER"
and "HOTLICKS". The experimental life drawing
was exported from the Responsive Workbench as an .iv file,
then converted to edit as a 3D vrml file in Bryce 4.0. The
figure was texture-mapped, and keyed to a different light
source before editing as a .psd file in PhotoShop 5.5. The
flame panel in "HOTLICKS" is 100% pure digital
painting, in no way photographic. Landscape backdrops, however,
were originally shot in Death Valley with a 35mm SLR Canon
F-1 camera and 28-mm lens. Highly realistic effects were achieved
using PhotoShop tools to edit the work, as only a painter
trained in old school tradition can. Finishing layers in both
works were filtered in Painter 6.0. Recreating human scale
was important, so large format digital prints were output
on a ColorSpan Display Maker XII at Jack Duganne's
Atelier, using Epson 1200/ MIS archival ink.
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