Down the rabbit hole

Background. Lucía took on a project that looked innocent enough at the outset but has let her (and us) deep into self-assembly wonderland. Wonder yes, and wondering, often. She ultimately returned victorious but had many experiences outside of what we saw as the norm. Along her journey in our lab, she collaborated extensively and those "characters" have had a tremendous impact on her as a scientist. Strong willed she has always been, and ready to battle demons yet imbued with a sense of wonder and discovery. The analogy to Alice and her voyage down into wonderland seemed fitting to me on many levels, also considering the link to Oxford (her partner Joe is an Oxford graduate), and prompted me to think about sculpting a delicate build that reflects her and her journey.

Sculpt. Lucía has investigated self-assembly of 2nd generation carpyridines (carbazole-pyridine macrocycles) that have become workhorses for what we call shape-assisted (or better: curvature-assisted) self-assembly. In her case, these were delicate polymers that in some ways have performed much better than previous ones but in others have been notoriously misbehaved. I wanted a high sculpt, to give Alice "room" for her fall down the hole and it seemed logical to form a loose stack, a tower that changes and solidifies with her progression but ultimately remains delicately balanced, more reminiscent of a feather than rock, at least where she begins. The theme of falling into a hat (or her mind if you will) indicates this as an inward journey more than anything else. Only later did I think to enable the hat to open, so you could see what has become of Alice. And what she had become, "Slayer of Carpys", buying heavily from American McGee's Alice (the post-wonderland computer game). On her downward (inward) journey, she is accompanied by a multitude of characters, from the rabbit that initiates her journey and inevitably gets pulled along (Joe), the grinning Cheshire cat impossibly balanced that pops up whenever advice is needed (Andreas) to the mad hatter, which has set the table for a fantastical cup of tea (you can guess that one). 

Technically this was a straightforward build, with the exception that it took me forever to work out how to continuously grow the sphere sizes from small at the top to solidified at the bottom (both for structural and story-telling reasons). In the end, it was Cinemas 4D's fields that came to the rescue, with quite a few memory crashes along the lines - just you try to teach dilation fields to behave within a volume builder...But I digress. The models I collect all through the net. Falling Alice is actually a composite of two models and quite a bit of sculpting to make it all match up.

Colors. I wanted color progressions in this one and pearlescent colors airbrush colors (the ones often used in motorcycles) were perfect to give the entire sculpt a sense of unrealism. At the same time, Lucía frequently identified successful self-assembly by shifts in color, giving this a meaningful aspect as well. From orange to blue to arrive at orange at the very bottom of the hat, a complete introspective journey through the land of molecular organization. Slightly weird, slightly dangerous, but a trip to remember.

Molecular Models: Spartan/Pymol
Sculpts: Maxon Cinema 4D, Kitbashes
Slices: Lychee
Print: Phrozen Mighty 12k
Paint: Grex Tritium, Pearlescent Acrylics

Need the project files? Write us!