Big Veggies (and Fruits)
I've always loved vegetables. Even as a young child, one of my favorite foods was green onion. It's really a bummer that my sensitive stomach sometimes limits my enjoyment of them... it's funny how something always gets in the way of a potentially healthy habit!
Recently I decided that it would be fun to capture the beauty of raw fruits and vegetables by 3D scanning their forms and created sculptures from the CAD data. I don't really modify the shapes much at all, other than to scale them up and make them more easy to manufacture - I find them beautiful as-is! Once the form is finalized, they're then printed on one of my FDM machines, polished up a bit, and sent out for casting and patina.
Recently I decided that it would be fun to capture the beauty of raw fruits and vegetables by 3D scanning their forms and created sculptures from the CAD data. I don't really modify the shapes much at all, other than to scale them up and make them more easy to manufacture - I find them beautiful as-is! Once the form is finalized, they're then printed on one of my FDM machines, polished up a bit, and sent out for casting and patina.
I made a bunch of bronze walnuts of various sizes
Large bronze walnut, made from the same CAD as the smaller pieces (but hollowed out and cast in pieces). On this one I kept the FDM support base and used it to create a stainless steel casting to support the piece and keep it vertical.
This bronze pear is about 2.5x typical size, and was created via lost "wax" process directly from an FDM print
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Walnuts after some polishing, on an awesome stainless steel dish
Bronze vase with grey patina, made for my Mom's birthday in 2018. It weighs about 35lb!
Bronze Yuzu. We grow these rare (in the US at least) Japanese fruit in our garden. Truly delicious!
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Buckeye. Raw bronze casting without patina, actual size
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Bell pepper. Polished and patina, 2.5x actual size
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Giant bell pepper, inspired by one grown by yours truly. Looks oddly like a molar tooth!
Life is full of "small potatoes" that can easily distract and annoy, but I'm doing my best to stay focused on the big ones: health, family, and friends. I made this giant bronze potato with that thought in mind -- here's to a great remainder of 2017 and beyond!
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My first stainless steel veggie: garlic. One of my all time favorites both as a sculpture and as a flavor. Maybe a (small) part of the reason I stayed single throughout highschool?
Large gourd with green patina. Similar in scale to the large potato; this one weighs about 40lb.
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Who doesn't love avocado toast? Have you ever tried making it with a 15lb bronze avocado, with a perfectly ripe patina? Delicious!
Donut peach, at ~3x scale
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Giant asparagus! These were cast solid, and weight around 5 pounds each.
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The cocoa pod embodies my love for chocolate! It's about 1.5' long, cast in bronze with a beautiful patina.
OK - I know squirrels aren't vegetables (though I'm told they do taste like chicken). This "hell squirrel" was designed and built to protect our vegetable garden from the real squirrels out there. It was cast in bronze, with a realistic patina, and is about 3x scale over typical squirrels. The LED eyes are powered by a battery, which will be hidden in the future. I'm going to try and hook this up with a motion sensor so that any snacking squirrel will fear that, if he doesn't move, he may be this squirrel's next snack!
Stay tuned for more pieces in this series -- and send over a comment with any new vegetable suggestions!
Giant asparagus - about 6.5' tall!
OK -- I know that ants aren't vegetables.... but this is big so I thought it belonged on this page anyway! This ant is made of laser-cut 1/2" thick plate steel, tacked together with some quick welds. I'm looking forward to seeing it rust overtime and assume a more ant-like color!
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Bright red heirloom tomato, about 2.5x size (8" or so diameter).
Evan and the large-but-not-so-giant (bronze) peach!
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Asparagus and mushrooms... it's what's for dinner! Suggestions welcome for the next giant veggie to add to the patch!