I’m a rabid fan of two comics, “Bloom County” and “Calvin and Hobbes.” I’ve long wanted to make a kinetic art piece that speaks to each of them and finally got going on Bloom County.
3D modeling is the key challenge here, and I recently sculpted the characters Binkley and the Giant Purple Snorklewacker who lives in the ‘anxiety closet’ near the foot of Binkley’s bed. The kinetics would be simple with an offset bore cam to produce the Snorklewacker’s jumping motion. I wanted to be sure that the bed would have a satisfying bounce, so I embedded compression springs on the four legs of the bed.
I used magnets to attach the front cover of the base and made it reversible so that the flip side revealed the comic (from 13-Feb-1983) in case anyone wanted the full context of the subject.
So, one down, one to go. Calvin and Hobbes, you’re next!
The Glowforge was responsible for the detail in the 1/8" ply floor, the baseboards/door casing from 1/8" acrylic, the big caption above the Snorklewacker and the title graphic on the front of the base (Rowmark 2-ply engravable acrylic) and the relief detail on the closet door (1/8" white acrylic).
That’s fabulous! So glad you included the cartoon as well, as I hadn’t seen it. Can’t wait to see what you do with Calvin and Hobbes, which is my favorite cartoon!
Can’t wait to see what you do with Calvin and Hobbes, which is my favorite cartoon!