What was this project?
For this project, we needed to create chess pieces with a partner and our pieces need to have related but opposing sides. We first needed to identify the roles of each piece and then as a class, we went through and gave each piece a personality. Then my partner and I brained stormed a few themes that could go well with the pieces as a whole. At the beginning of this project, we had to create checkers pieces as an exercise. This was to help us understand the opposing side aspect of the project. For my checker pieces, I went with a yin and yang theme where when a yin piece would jump over a yang piece, the yang piece would turn black and vice versa.
Identifying each piece
For this project, We first started listing off the chess piece’s roles and what their personalities would be. The pawn is a piece that can only move straight forward unless attacking which then they must attack at a diagonal. At the start, the pawn is allowed to move two spots forward. If the pawn pieces reach the end it can revive another piece. This piece is one of the weakest but comes in the most amount, with 8 on each side of the board. If this piece were a person it would be someone common like a bunch of students or fast-food workers.
The rook piece can move straight forward or side to side as many spaces it wants before being blocked or capturing another piece. This is a piece that can be very powerful and reliable. As a class, we felt that this piece would be someone like a bouncer or security guard because this piece is very reliable and bold. We felt that these pieces would be about 30 years old. This piece would probably be someone big and strong because it is a building.
The knight piece is the piece shaped like a horse. This piece is one that required strategy and is very powerful when used right. It is the only piece that can jump over another unit because of its unique movement. This piece is usually the most detailed unit and is the only piece that you can really tell immediately what it is. I felt that if this piece had a personality it would be very jumpy and reckless. I also felt that this piece would always want to be the center of attention. This unit would be about 25 years old in my opinion.
The bishop piece is a piece on the board that represents a church. This piece is one of the most strategic units in the game. It’s a piece that can win the game in 3 rounds if not careful. It can only move diagonally as many spaces it wants until blocked or it captures another unit. I felt that if this piece had a personality it would be very smart or nerdy. They would be the know it all, of the group. I think this piece would be somewhere around 40 to 50.
The queen piece is the most powerful piece in the game. It can move in any direction as many spaces as it wants until blocked by a unit or it captures a unit. If this piece had a personality, it would be the demanding one that makes all of the moves. This piece would be the one who has to solve all of the problems and gets things done when needed. The queen would always be on the move and be very active. I think that this unit would be about 40 to 50.
The king piece is the most important piece on the boards but is also one of the weakest pieces, right behind the pawn. The only thing keeping it stronger than the pawn is that it can move backward and to the side which the pawn can not. In my opinion, the piece is always hiding and running away from problems letting everyone else take care of them. I think if this piece had a personality, they would be scared and selfish. I think that this unit would be about 60+.
My Concept.
My Concept for this project is to take each piece’s personality and think about how I could turn them into animals. I want to think of the roles of each piece and how they relate to the roles of the animal kingdom. I then want to take the imagery of the chess pieces and reshape them to give the animals a base to stand on. The elements and principles that I want to use are shape, texture, contrast, pattern, and form. The message I want the pieces to display is my thought of the roles of each piece in chess display as animals. I want there to be a royal feeling to the animal theme to keep the normal feeling of chess in the pieces. The materials and tools that I will use for this are bristol, Illustrator, ProCreate, and the laser cutter.
Animals as Chess Pieces.
For this project, My partner and I chose to go with animals. I went with jungle animals and my partner went with savannah animals. To start this I thought about the roles of the jungle animals. What animals is the king of the jungle or what is the pawn of the jungle? My immediate thought of the kind of the jungle was a tiger. I thought of this because of the movie, “The Jungle Book.” Thinking of other movies helped me come up with ideas for some of the other pieces. For the bishop piece, because I felt that a snake was a good fit because I felt that snakes very smart and strategic with the way they attack. They also have a different movement unlike many other animals as does the bishop. For the rook, because it is a building, I wanted something big and sturdy. My first thought was a rhino but then I thought about it and rhinos aren’t really jungle animals, so instead, 
I went with a gorilla. For the queen, I chose to go with a jaguar. I wanted to keep it similar to the king but I didn’t want it to be confused with the king. I also felt that the jaguar’s quick movement was a good fit to go with the queen. The knight piece I was thinking about its movement and how it could jump over pieces. For this piece, I chose a jungle frog. I knew that I wanted to make this the most detailed unit and I also felt that the shape of the frog’s body was similar to the knight piece. Finally for the pawn unit. Since this is the most common unit, I felt that the only good choice I could go with is a monkey. They are rambunctious, not the most dangerous, and pretty common so these were the perfect fit. To start drawing these pieces I looked at pictures of the animals and eye drew them. I Didn’t just want to take silhouettes of the animals off the internet, I wanted it to be my work. When first drawing these animals, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to just have the animals or if I wanted it to look like a chess piece. I started by making a few different views of the animals in case I wanted to make a 3d model of them. Then the idea of making them look like chess pieces popped into my head and so I gave each animal a bass that was similar to their corresponding piece. After drawing each piece, I dragged the drawing page into illustrator to start refining and getting my images ready for the laser cutter. I ended up using the laser cutter machine myself which was a pretty easy process. When I got there all of the settings were already set. All I need to do was take my file and print it.
Crafting
After I was done with the laser cutter all I had left to do was cut out a place for the pieces to connect. I decided that I didn’t want to create a base at the bottom of the piece because I felt like it would be hard with paper rather than doing it with cardboard. I also felt that when I crafted my pieces they stood up pretty when on their own and so a base wasn’t really necessary. I think a few things that would change if I were to craft these again would be to make some adjustments on the tiger because a bit of the paper got cut out from the laser cutter because the detail was too small. To end this project I played a few games of chess. I lost every round but it was still fun.