Friday 28 March 2008

Some Light Relief.


Some time ago - 3rd January, to be precise – I posted a blog on MySpace about the Terrorama project; specifically, the idea of a relief texture which incorporates some of the circuits developed for the previous scenes.

Well, I can finally say that I have got past the development and casting stages. I created a completely new sculpt – the one seen in the previous blog (3rd Jan) was put together in a rush just so we could test out the lighting and frame considerations. This time I went for more texture, and worked the eye with more fissures and detail. Whereas the former eye was hastily built from an epoxy resin, this one is now like crystal, faceted and polished to really work with the illumination.

In order to keep the final cost as low as possible, we revised some of the more ambitious ideas proposed in the original blog. That was me getting carried away. We have moved some of the tricks to later designs (there are four more lined up) – this one just seemed to work great when triggered by light levels and temperature. The other effects changed the way the eye 'lived' in the room, and we felt this particular design was much better suited to more subtle triggers, changing slowly but continually.

The end result was even better than I had expected. When the eye is lit, colours shift and merge in the orb – the smallest shift in the viewing angle causes the hues to merge and bloom, so it appears that the eye is radiating all sorts of colours inside itself. As you walk around it, the colours shift from greens to red, creating a kind of pulsing heat of oranges. As the greens begin to dominate, an angry corona of red circles the eye.

I have tried to capture this (poorly) with my little camera. In professional hands this would be a joy to behold, but for the moment you are going to have to make do with my attempts:

The three at the bottom were taken in sequence (left to right) – notice how the reds flood the eye.

Some more images -


Again, a fractional move to the left shifts the colours inside the eye. The image below shows the effect under normal lighting conditions.


The lighting you see on the outside of the relief is dictated by temperature – blues become dominant if it is cold, reds if it is warm. At night, if it is cold, the eye will turn completely green -


This is what it looks like under daylight – one with the eye functioning, one with it turned off -


All of these images show the relief without it's frame – that's because they are a few days away at the time of writing. Overall, each will measure only approximately 14x18cm and powered via a mains adaptor, suitable for free-standing or wall mounting.

Each piece is hand crafted and painted; the monochrome hues on the relief form a perfect canvas for the light effects, which introduce primaries into key areas, transforming the look of the relief.

The Light Relief forms part of the Terrorama project. Once complete, the first Light Relief will be available from the Doodlemonkie website – check soon for details: DM Website

Thanks for looking!