Reverse Engineered Object : Process I

Reverse Engineered Object : Process I
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Howdy partners! After the discussion in class I decided to choose the Hair Crab Claw as my final object. I felt that although there were not a lot of components to it, the two main claw parts were tough enough where I could actually experiment and possibly struggle a bit so I wanted to see what I could do. And so lets get into it!

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First up, I worked on the little screw/nail component. I decided to make half of the shape and then I would revolve it. So I made a rectangle of the body and then worked on the head.

For the head fillet corners were not working so I simply decided to use the trusted circle method to add curvature to the shapes. And to achieve the rounded top of the head I used an arc tool. 

There were also a pair of darkened grooves in the shape, so I also added those. They were also slightly indented and so I add that as well.

I noticed I had put the indent on the wrong side so I flipped it over.

Afterwards I started adding randomly placed groove markings that appeared on the surface of the object give a realistic feel. To do so I used a parabola tool and then adjusted their spacing and placement on the surface.

I also added a little opposite groove that appeared in one of the darkened areas protruding out rather than in. 

Lastly the bottom of my object has a little indentation and kind of sharp "lip" to it.

Afterwards I simply revolved it and added a metallic surface to it. I also added a slight grit texture to it as its not full smooth.

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Next I moved onto the little spring looking shape. Firstly I measured the inner and outer circumference and then found the midpoint which would be my actual path. I made 2 circle, made a spiral path that I adjusted the pitch and turns to be accurate to my shape. I then added a circle the correct circumference and sweeped it (roadlike) up around the spiral.

I made it 3D and then worked on adding the little arms. I did the bottom one easily. However the top one wasn't going to be aligned in the correct spot so I decided to cut it off in the right place with a "knife. Which was just a thin rectangular shape. I then got rid of that section and attached another arm. And once again I added a material textural surface. 

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Afterwards I put them together to test out how they fit. It was correct in the way the bar part of the nail/screw was more loose inside the spring, But the head wouldn't be able to pass through the inner part of the spiral and worked as a stopper.

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Lastly I started messing around with the Claw part of my object. I decided to start from the side view and then extrude it and slowly cut things out and shape it into its proper form. I started off by measuring the inner portions of the object.

Then I started figuring out how to do the little "arm" sticking out. And it looked good at this stage but when I offset the curve to the correct thickness the inner curve wasn't spaced out right. 

So I tried a different approach and I got a much more accurate result. Including the correct thickness, inner curve, and the slight inward curve in the Arm piece that wasn't present in the first attempt.

There was however a slight little bump in the shape but I plan on trying different methods to smooth it out for the next process. 

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And so this is where I am currently at in my Reverse Engineered Object Process.

Thanks!