2. Digital bodies¶

Research & Ideation¶

Over the past few years as I have moved in and out of the world of fashion I've noticed trends towards more customized clothing. I've noticed this on the luxury side of gown making for once in a lifetime events like wedding and senior Prom. I've also noticed this in streetwear culture. For fashion designers, the availablity of fast fashion makes the need for customized garments even more competitive. As more companies opt to utilize technology to produce custom clothing more quickly, I am curious to explore how these processes have evolved over time.

Some of the concepts tha I wanted to expand my understanding on was the cost of customizing a garment using the example of tailored business wear.

References & Inspiration¶

This week I was inspired by my own need for a more precise mannequin both full scale and half scale for fashion design.

I currently own a PGM Collapsible Industrial Mannequin and enjoy draping and sizing pattern flats against the mannequin.

I'd like for that process to be more sustainable and one way to do that is to adjust my current mannequin such that the pieces I prototype can be worn by me or by someone my size, like my daughter.

Currently, my mannequin is about a size to two sizes smaller than me in some areas.

This week's tutorial focused on taking real world items and bringing them into the digital space using 3d scanning technology. Once the items are moved into the digital space, we were taught additive and subtractive processes.

Current DIY Processes for making your own mannequin require a lot of materials that are not earth friendly and materials that do not stand up to multiple uses.

Inspiration¶

The work of ashid Johnson, Ana Mendieta, and Eduardo Kac provides significant inspiration to me this week, particularly in how they redefine the human form as a canvas for creation and use technology or organic materials to explore the intersection of the body and nature.

Rashid Johnson¶

Rashid Johnson utilizes mixed media to create "searing meditations on race and class," using materials that have specific cultural and bodily significance.

Body-Centric Materials: Fabricademy encourages the use of diverse materials like resins, wood, and composites. Johnson uses materials with deep bodily significance—shea butter and black soap—to represent "inner and outer bodily life." This inspires me to think about how the substance of a 3D-fabricated body can carry cultural or biological meaning.
Representation of the Body: Johnson represents the body and "inner bodily life" through materials like shea butter and black soap, which are traditionally used for self-care and maintenance in Black households. His Anxious Men series uses these materials to "conjure a face" or an audience of faces, representing the collective consciousness of anxiety. Digital tools can be used to represent complex psychological states like anxiety. His "God" paintings use gestural abstraction to represent spiritual concepts, inspired by the physical sensation of the sun's warmth on his face.
Interaction with Nature: Johnson incorporates live plants into massive, gridded steel installations like Antoine’s Organ and Plateaus. These works create "urban terrariums" where nature is contained within architectural structures alongside books and rugs, representing a "social matrix" where natural life and human culture coexist.
The Body as a Scaffold: Johnson’s massive gridded steel installations like Antoine’s Organ, which house live plants and cultural artifacts, function similarly to the "Textile as Scaffold" or the "canvas" approach in Fabricademy. He places nature (plants) within a structured, architectural framework, much like how I as a designer use a digital or physical mannequin as a structural support for my work.

A Plant Scaffold Installation by Johnson

Ana Mendieta¶

Mendieta’s practice aligns with the Fabricademy goal of moving beyond a "simple copy of a figure" to treat the body as a site of intervention.

Physical Scanning and Imprints: This week we are expected to "scan and create a scale 1:1 figure," Mendieta used her physical form to create imprints and silhouettes in the earth. Her Silueta Series acts as a primal version of a 3D scan, where the body's geometry is captured by and merged with natural materials like mud and grass.
Nature as Material: Her use of "Organic" art terms and natural elements mirrors the Fabricademy interest in "Biofabricating Materials" and "Composites." She represents the body as something fundamentally tied to the earth, providing a philosophical counterpoint to the synthetic nature of digital fabrication. Works like Ocean Bird (Washup) and Nile Born further illustrate this thematic connection, representing the body as something born from or returning to natural elements like water and soil.

Untitled from the Silueta Series by Ana Mendieta

Eduardo Kac¶

Kac’s work is a direct precursor to the high-tech methodologies of Digital Bodies, which utilize 3D scanners, CAD software, and digital fabrication.

The Encoded Body: Kac views life as "encoded information" and "programmable," which resonates with the Fabricademy use of 3D modeling software like Blender to manipulate meshes.
Digital and Hybrid Bodies: His project Ágora, a hologram sent into space, is essentially a "digital body" that exists as light and code rather than physical matter. This provides inspiration for the "digital tailor" concept in Fabricademy, where the body is translated into data to create unique digitally tailored garments or scale replicas. His use of DNA and digital implants also explores the "fluidity of subject positions in the post-digital world."

Eduardo Kac's Digital Rabit

The Artists¶

Left : Rashid Johnson Right : Ana Mendieta

Eduardo Kac

Download reference

Tools¶

- PGM Collapsible Industrial Mannequin
- 3d scan with Skanect(https://skanect.structure.io)
- Mesh repair with Blender (http://blender.org)
- 3d Model with MakeHuman (http://www.makehumancommunity.org)

Process and workflow¶

I started by taking measurements of my mannequin.

I then proceeded to take measurements of myself.

I scanned my mannequin using ____ to check the dimensions.

I took the measurements of myself into makehuman then practiced additive and subtractive manufacturing using Blender and Hyoer3D.

Make Human¶

Opens with a sample human Practice moving within the space (paning, scrolling, zooming) Middle scroll on mouse : Zooming in and out
Left click : grab and move the page/object around in a 360 motion Right click : grab and move the page object towards the screen Ctrl Shift Change the properties of your sample human in the second from the top tab bar under modeling >main>macro.

Here you will find info like gender, age, muscle, etc. You can see those details change to your specificity as you toggle by noticing the bottom info bar

If you want to adjust your human, keep your eye on the bottom bar as you toggle the amounts (in orange) of each human characteristic listed in the Macro menu.

As a diasporic African (I am the granddaughter of former slaves on both sides of my family), I have both African and caucasian features and little to no asian features. I was shocked at how my actual skull and facial structure could be closely resembled by toggling these three (African, Asian, Caucasian) lines. Now I have made edits to my human and am ready to export it To export: Within the top navigation/tool bar you will see files > export

Here is what my human looks like with a bit of personalization

Hyper3D¶

Go to the site and click import. As soon as you go to the link, the first thing you will see is Import on the screen. After importing your mesh, your body should appear within the software’s screen.

You can use the brushes like you would with clay and other materials to adjust the proportions of your 3d body. TIP : Choose symmetry so that whatever you’re doing on one side of the body on the right.

Next I will download this as an obj as well, using the download button

Polygonal¶

If you need to clean your mesh further, you can utilize a polygonal mesh editor. It will show you the density of your mesh etc.

When the desktop site opens, click "run the app"

When the app opens there may be an object there that is not yours. It’s fine. When you open yours, that one will be replaced. Go to the navigation bar >file>open>choose your mesh (for this one im importing my hyper3d obj file with muscles).

On the left you have mesh commands like remeshing. In this tutorial we do a uniform remeshing; however, in my practice, choosing uniform remesh also removed a lot of details like the face, hands, and feet.

I finished by exporting my polygonal mesh edited form as an OBJ file

Prusa Slicer¶

I imported it to the prusa slicer where i got a few messages. First, it asked if I wanted prusa to redo the dimensions since the original is in inches. I said yes. Once on the platter, there was an error triangle near object manipulation telling me that vectors were open. I clicked on this triangle and the slicer “repaired” those errors for me. I am not sure what that means.

I decided to do my first test with 15% infill with support enforcers everywhere. I also changed the scale factor to 205%. The print time for this piece will be 2h15m.

I decided to do my second test with 15% infill with support enforcers everywhere. I also changed the scale factor to 410%. The print time for this piece would be 9h27m

Blendr¶

First, I started by re-downloading blender as I had an older version.

After downloading, I added the boolean extension

After adding it to blender, i went to the navigation bar to ensure it was added and activated: edit>preferences>add ons>boolean (was checked) Once that was done, I added myself (my makehuman self) into the workspace and opened the boolean tool within the edit toolbar to the right

Using Shift + A i added this cube

I then modified it to be the size of my head and legs and also practiced moving it around

I duplicated and added another at the thighs so that i can make an upperbody torso

I saved the new half scale form as an OBJ file

Fusion 360 Slicer and Laser Cutting¶

After importing my 3d body into fusion 360, First I changed the dimensions of my cutting dimensions. Keep in mind thickness refers to the thickness of your material. In this case I'm using 3mm Plywood/Cardboard.

I chose interlock slices as my construction technique and scaled to my board size

I modified the directions of my slices because i had a few red (error) areas

Below you will see my assembly steps after choosing get plans files are exported in your file choice.