Category: Painting

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Student Commission: Anime Character

Painted by artist intern Erika Gonzales, photo by photography intern Angelique Doty

Here we meet up with Erika Gonzalez, the artist intern at the Design Hub involved in past projects such as the Ishango Bones and the Cell Membrane projects. Now she shows us her beautiful new sculpture that she is painting for Jiajun Guan.  The people involved in this wonderful new project are: Erika Gonzalez, Jiajun Guan, and a team of 3D modelers and 3D printers.

Painted by artist intern Erika Gonzales, photo by photography intern Angelique Doty

Jiajun Guan found Erika painting the Ishango Bones (discussed in the other blogs and twitter posts) in the Design Lab 211, and was so inspired by her fantastic artistic talents with the paintbrush that he asked Randy, our tream ead at the Design Hub, to recruit her to do some work for him too!  Erika was assigned to paint the generic anime character for Jiajin Guan, and she finished beautiful painting in 11 hours of work from March 8- March 12! Soon this sculpture of the generic anime character will be moved from the Design Hub Room 311 and will probably be moved to a place for student to stop by and look at it, or it may be placed on Jaijun Guan’s desk.

Painted by artist intern Erika Gonzales, photo by photography intern Angelique Doty

Even though this beautiful sculpture is the only of her kind, we can all look forward to seeing Erika Gonzalez’s fantastic art skills in the future projects that she will be participating in. She will be collaborating with Jiajun Guan with the Snow Wars project, specifically, working on the development of “Snow Wars Santas.”

She uses the same techniques as the cell membrane and Ishango bones projects: she paints the sculpture first with acrylic paint, then seals in the paint with Mod Podge. What was different with this sculpture was the way Erika painted the eyes: with an ink pen!  She used the ink pen to add gentle and minute detail to the character’s eyes, giving them a certain life and sparkle. We are definitely looking forward to future art and 3D printing collaboration projects to come!

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Art Meets Science Here at American River College’s Design Hub

The Design Hub here at American River College is a strong proponent of multidisciplinary collaboration. At the Hub, team-building across all planes is valued and celebrated. It is a place where the arts and sciences come to eclipse, and the outcome is something truly spectacular.

Artist intern Erika hard at work. Photo by photography intern Angelique Doty

Here, we meet Erika Gonzalez to learn more about about her job as an artist for the Design Hub. Her current project: to paint the cell membrane models for the Science Department.  These little cell membranes required the help of Erika’s excellent painting skills, 3D printing, the Science Department, and 3D modelers to create the cell membrane structure. Erika is the lucky intern who was chosen to complete this project. ARC’s Science Department ordered the models of the cell membranes from Randy Schuster, the head supervisor of all the interns that make up the Design Hub. He has made sure to connect with nearly every department on campus, and runs the Design Hub in such a way that allows ARC’s campus to benefit from all of the hard work, talent, and innovation that comes out of the Hub.

The painted cell. Photo by photography intern Angelique Doty

The diagram of the model was sent from the Science Department to the 3D modeling interns at the Design Hub. They then transformed the structure into a file format that the 3D printers could handle.  From there, the files were transformed into printable structures, and were given to Erika to paint and bring to life. She had to paint each minute crevice in the same way as the 3D printed grain, paying a lot of attention to detail. She is painting the cell membranes with acrylic paint, then sealing it with Mod Podge to prevent the acrylic paint from chipping. This project will be housed at the Design Hub lab room 311, and it will be on display in the Science classrooms. It will also be used as a class reference for the Science Department.  The Design Hub is very proud of the collaborative efforts of our many talented 3D printing modelers, our artist intern Erika, as well as the Science Department. When art marries science and design, the possibilities are truly endless!