Introducing the Vaporwave PottyPony!

Remember the Potty Pony from last week's blog about cursed inventions? Well this week, the Potty Pony is back and better than ever after it received a MeshMixer makeover!

#glowup

Out of the eccentric products I presented last week, the Potty Pony was one of the most cringe-inducing. My classmates, friends, and family members all had visceral reactions to it—an excellent response to an art piece. 

After all, art is supposed to make you feel something.

Last week, I also received a lot of positive feedback on my animatronic vaporwave Motorola brick phone. One of my favourite things about that concept is the colour palette, so I chose to incorporate it into the Potty Pony design. 

While I worked on the model, I kept finding things that I wanted to modify (like adding a flusher) and I honestly feel like I could spend another 8 hours working on it. However, I feel quite satisfied with how the model turned out! 

This was my first time combining models in MeshMixer and it was incredibly challenging. Aside from the fact that the program crashed 47 times (I am not exaggerating), learning how to blend solids and apply custom shading made the process very intense. 

Fortunately, this process allowed me to pick up a number of really useful tricks that make the Potty Pony stand out. I really liked the option to change the colour of the background and hide the grid, it gave my work more of a Pop Art quality. The vertex painter brush and the colour blender were also very useful because they allowed me to make smooth colour gradients on my object. 

I constructed this model using 3 different files from Thingiverse: a rocking horse frame, a toilet, and a pony head. 

I modified each of these models significantly, especially the pony head, to achieve the look I had in mind. I smoothed out many of the details to create a more artificial, hard-plastic-and-porcelain kind of appearance. 

I feel like the Potty Pony embodies many ideas related to Remix Culture — not only because it is a remix itself — but because it is a parody of the fun but impractical remixed products that have always been part of our market. For instance, take the 1935 unicycle/motorcycle Monocycle or the 1970s Wonder Sauna Hot Pants.

IMAGEs: FPG/HULTON ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES; 20 Odd Vintage Products You Won't Find Today | Bored Panda

What makes these products so odd is the fact that they combine two things from different contexts that we are familiar with. If someone wants to make an odd invention, the best thing to do is to merge two things that have no business being together. 

Our familiarity with rocking horses and toilets is what makes the Potty Pony so uncomfortable. When we look at it, we instinctively imagine it in action: rocking back and forth splashing water everywhere. We imagine it being used by someone — or worse — we put ourselves in that position. 

And with that beautiful mental image, I end this blog post.

Until next week!