UNIT 8 Maquettes

Maquettes are a vital part of developing your ideas when making a sculpture as a maquette can act as visual representation of your sculpture allowing you to develop and refine your ideas into a final design. The first set of maquettes I made were to further explore which direction layers would look most effective and to see whether the shapes of each layer were in fact accurate.

Highlighted text shows health and safety requirements

Step 1. I traced around the bottom of each vertical ceramics cross section onto a thick card

Step 2. Then I cut out each of the shapes using the fret saw

eye protection and ear defenders must be worn.

Step 3. Create a base to slot in all cross sections keeping each layer 10 mm apart

Step 4. Assemble all the pieces to create maquette

Step 5. Repeat the process using the horizontal ceramics cross section

ensure to follow health and safety requirements when repeating step two

After producing the vertical version of the maquette I found I had made an error in the measurements when cutting out the pieces as I didn't add enough excess material to most of the layers causing the face to slope backwards too drastically. However, I don't plan on producing another maquette to correct my mistakes as even though there are undisguisable errors in this maquette you can still see that vertical cross sections would be ineffective as the contours between layers are too dramatic; it is the most noticeable at the nose of the face.

The horizontal maquette I made consists of twenty one layers and I found that even though some of the layers need adjusting overall a facial shape is very distinguishable therefore demonstrating that the horizontal maquette is the most effective out of the two; from this point I will use horizontal layers within my design.

To create a makeshift base I used to strips of card and slotted each layer onto them however I will develop a more professional looking and secure base.

As the maquette serves as a visual representation of your final piece I decided to print maps onto the surface of the layers to represent the map I will design to go onto each of the layers.