I have some catching up to do on posting about my work projects.
First up is the cross-section wheat seed that I made for CSIRO Plant Industry, for their annual display at Floriade in September. In other years I’ve made a caterpillar and cross-section flower for them. The wheat seed is carved out of polystyrene, and surfaced with a mixture of materials: fabric, paper mache, paint and latex. There is a photoset of the process.
I was pleased when I realized I could use a strange stretchy and very synthetic fabric for instant and variable cell textures. I had used this fabric for skin texture on a goanna puppet in a TV pilot years ago. At the time the pilot program was taken to a childrens’ program market in Cannes, and there was hopeful anticipation of it being sold to China. Someone with dollars in their eyes advised buying up extra fabric against the day when we went into full goanna and other animal puppet production, but there I was ten years later cutting into it for the first time!
The unlikeliest thing about the wheat seed was how cute it was. Everyone who picked it up cradled it like a baby, and admired its cute little tuft of bristles!
