Glipper

Inspiration

I have 2 tortoises with me, Gucci (female) and Coke (male). I have always wondered why they never mated. On talking to a reptile vet I understood that tortoise need the right habitat or a well incubated environment to reproduce. Since Mumbai’s weather is not suitable, they are not tempted to mate. And so, I decided to use this class to create 4 baby tortoises for Gucci and Coke, completing their small little family. I began with Gucci and Coke’s first child, Glipper.

I looked up online for some inspiration images to identify the aesthetic I want to go for. I prefer wood toys since the texture of wood replicates the shell of the tortoise pretty closely. These toys below are somewhat the look I want to try to achieve for baby Glipper.

Initial Sketches

I began to sketch the look of Glipper keeping in mind the round, clean and minimalistic edges. I wanted to give Glipper the look of innocence and a childlike expression. While drawing the sketches I noticed, the rounder the shapes of Glipper, the younger it makes him look.

Sculpting

I began some rough sculpting prototype using aluminium foil and wires. I wanted to get a gist on the size, shape, look and form of Glipper. I made a few options of how I wanted the hands and legs to look like and how I wanted the tail to taper at the back of the shell. My main aim was to see how these different shapes looked like once they came together as one form. I was a little disappointed since the aluminium foil did not exactly replicate what I was trying to achieve, but nevertheless, this exercise was just to understand and see Glipper come into 3D after the initial sketches.

This exercise did surely give me some good insight into the form of Glipper. But I still wanted something more solid to help me visualise Glipper’s form. I hence decided to 3D print a prototype of Glipper’s body using TinkerCad.

I got Glipper 3D printed at a 3D printing lab near my house in Mumbai. This was the final result.

This week, I wanted to get Glipper in it’s 3D form using wood. Due to the unfortunate event of COVID-19, I did not have access to the floor or the woodshop. I was not sure how I would be able to sculpt Glipper using wood from my home country. On doing some research, I found someone who would be able to print Glipper using their CNC machine. 

The requirement to print on CNC machine was to a have .STP file. The file that I designed on TinkerCad was a .STL file. And so, with the help of a 3D CNC designer, I converted the file into a .STP file. 

The CNC machine that we used was a 3.5 axis CNC machine. What this meant was that the machine first cut only one half of the wood and then we had to manually flip Glipper and cut on the second side.

On finishing Glipper’s print, it looked something like this.

I realised that since the CNC machine was a 3.5 axis machine, the back of Glipper was not printed correctly and was left incomplete from the wood block. I also noticed that the machine could not print the details and fine lines of Glipper correctly. And hence, to do that I will have to use sanding paper.

So I decided to sand Glipper using different number grits. I used 80, 100, 150, 220. I started with 80 and worked my way up.

I sanded Glipper with hand, it didn’t turn out perfectly as I wanted it to be, but I tried sanding my best.

Now it was time to polish Glipper. I used a clear varnish polish, coloured powder and a brush for this process.

I made the colour mix by mixing a little of the coloured powder with the clear varnish in a disposable cup. I wanted to make sure that the consistency was perfect, so that the colour wouldn’t be absorbed easily by the wood.

On adding color to the shell of Glipper, I realised the hardest areas were in between the hands, and the edges of the shell. Some of the paint came on the hands, but I tried to sand those areas and make the color fade.

After 30 minutes of letting the color dry, I did a coat of clear varnish all over Glipper. On drying I realised that this made Glipper much darker than I would like it to be. My guess was that I must have not cleaned my brush well after using the color, which is why some left-over color made Glipper dark entirely.

I then had 4 more Glippers designed under the CNC machine. This time it was important that the CNC machine got the tail of Glipper right. The process for the other 4 Glippers were the same. The machine etched on one side first, and then on switching the side of the wooden block, the machine etched the other half.

After getting Glippers made on the CNC machine, it was time to sand them just how I did previously using sand paper. I again used 80, 100, 150, 220 grit sand paper for all the four Glippers.

I then took all the four Glippers and did the painting and polishing for each one of them. I realised that I did not want to do a layer of clear polish throughout the design since the wood absorbs the polish and makes it really dark. I kind of digged the rough texture of the tortoise, giving the design a scale-like effect.

On finishing the entire painting and polishing process, I decided to take some fun pictures of Glippers together as a family.