Vision
Earth is an attractive, beautiful body floating in space, drawing bodies nearer to see what's happening. It's shiny outer layer catches the eye until it successfuly sucks everything down into its gullet. Just as the human body digests, so does our Earth. It's scary as we live our lives somewhere within the labyrinth of the gastrointestinal timeline between birth and death, there's a point where we see this image of the outside, and feel trapped within this outer being. We're part of a large system, and just as we feel helpless, together we ARE this being. It's important to take care of a body like this just as our own. Then again, what's the point when we're just so easily digested?

Inspiration
This project began as an image in my mind of what an environment should be. I pictured a maze, a cave as a suitable environment to model. This developed into a humorous trip through the human body that would be quite intersting, similar to those books where the school teacher brings her class on a magic school bus. [5]
My first sketches started with how one would navigate this environment without knowing where they were until the middle or end! [fig.1] This developed, just as many of my other works into a more elaborate and multiple meaning environment. I liked the idea of something with deeper meaning and more intense. Although I lost some of the humor in my original idea, it became more rich with a sci-fi theme. [fig. 4]

Sketches

        fig.1                     fig.2                    fig.3                    fig.4                  fig.5

Description and Methods
You're looking at the planet Earth, a human being, a cube with the gastrointestinal system running through it. The mouth sticks out of the top of the cube like a cave with a tongue protruding. It's waiting for ANYTHING to come and see whats inside. This body or system is floating in space, or perhaps more specifically our solar system. The journey begins through the top hole, down the esophagus into the stomach, meeting up with some food that hasn't been fully digested yet. The further along in the journey into the intestines, the faster time seems to go, just like in real life. Until the end is violently reached in a disgusting way.

I began with bottom-up cylindrical modeling to create most of this environment. The Gastrointestinal system was created with only two cylinders, one for the mouth to the small intestine, and one for the large intestine. I used the Edge Loop Tool [fig.6 and 7] to expand on the initial cylinders and proceeded with the scale [fig.8], move, and rotate tools to achieve the shape that I desired.

 

fig. 6	fig.7
	fig.8

 

Simple textures and shaders were employed to give a smooth and futuristic sci-fi feel to these models in the environment. The digestive system, in particular the stomach and small intestines required a wet, shiny surface that would reflect the actual nature of these textures in real life. [fig. 13]

Selected Renders

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       fig.9                     fig.10                    fig.11                    fig.12                  fig.13            fig. 14

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References

1, stomach / small intestine reference images / webpages:

ref1 | ref2 | ref3 | ref4 | ref5

2. grass texture
flickr user: givepeasachance
http://www.flickr.com/photos/djbrady/1393328636/

3. tongue texture
flickr user: AntToeKnee
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bupswee/540914378/

4. esophagus reference
flickr
http://www.flickr.com/photos/testastretta/327749902/

5. Magic School Bus - Explores the Human Body
http://www.quandaryland.com/jsp/dispArticle.jsp?index=11