Research
https://notability.com/n/23fgC1A3x7cPW4Q8Ivpzuv
Full Page of notes of each chess piece with sketch tests
Research on different leaf shapes for the pawn
Iterations
Did Do…
- Gaia Queen
- Earth King
- Wave Knight (acrylic)
- Tree Stump Rook
- Vine Bishop
- Leaf Pawn
- Greek Goddess chess set
- All Etched and cross hatched pieces
Didn’t Do…
- Full body sized Queens
- Rose King
- Original Rook plan
- Plant Leaf shape
Process
This process was very hectic, as the laser cutter and the innovation studio was fully booked and filled throughout the weeks we had to work on our project. We were forced to make many many sacrifices and changes to our plans. I was ambitious in the beginning, making huge plans and ideas before I found out about the heavy restrictions. Once I accepted the fact we may not be able to cut our pieces out of wood and acrylic like we had planned, we came up with backup plans.
Plan B was to try and cut thin pieces of wood on a circuit with a knife tool. Unfortunately, the scale was too small for the circuit to get all the intricate cuts. Also, I did not have direct access to this specific circuit.
Plan C was to use foam sheets and mod podge them together to make depth and color them with sharpies. This plan didn’t last long because we realized it would have looked awful and messy. It was more manageable than Plan A and B so we did consider it. Ashleigh went on a material hunt to look for better material but to stick with their plan off cutting with her circuit from home.
Plan D was to repetitively cut out our shapes and pieces in card stock and glue them on top of each other to make it thicker than connect them using split forms.
We began with the plans for each of the queens, because we deducted that she was the most important player. We revolved each side of the chess board around the theme of the queen.
In the end I had to change most of my original designs, including the queen. I was running out of time and had to simplify most of my designs. This still worked out in the end because of my material. The material gave it an additional vibe with the clear acrylic. Beautiful and pure, like nature.
This is the final template I chose to cut. I wanted the face to be clearly recognized, not blocked by another split form. The bottom piece also show her shoulders, which adds to depth and reality.
The first test cut I did, I realized I did the measurements too large, so the pieces slid out from the cuts. Her hair pieces were also too thin and they broke off, as well as the split form, which I measured wrong and her shoulders came up way too high.
From the beginning, I wanted her to have a flower crown but I didn’t have time to constrict one out of real materials so I used sharpies to draw out some flowers and then dropped acetone on top, making the two chemicals react to each other in a way where it looked like stained glass.
I had high hopes for the king, we started with the idea of a rose trapped in a clear acrylic vase, like in the Beauty and the Beast. Our idea of the King was that he was weak and useless, only there to be defeated in the end. He was as the Queens inevitable demise. Although we had harsh feelings towards this piece, he was still important so we made both Kings as planets. The Earth is a dying planet just as the Sun is a dying star.
My first plan was to just cut out plain circles and split form them together and color them as stained glass to resemble Earth, but I didn’t want the color to be distracting so I re cut the piece with outlines of the countries. My first cut was also wrong because the middle spaces were too wide. My new piece was much better and it was easily definable as Earth.
The knight was my personal favorite. From the beginning, I wanted to make the wave of acrylic, while all the others in the nature pieces would be made of wood. Due to lack of material and means of cutting, I was bound to the large sheet of acrylic I bought and nothing else. My first idea was to cut out the middle supports and have those interlock with some sort of clear wrapping to form the outside wave shape. I didn’t have enough time to test and prototype this so, instead, I went with what I knew.
I decided to just etch the design of the wave onto one plane of material and make a slit into another plane so it would stand up. This worked perfectly.
These were my first tests, as you can see, I missed the measurement of how wide my split cut was and I tried to force it to fit but it broke. The one on the right has an uneven bottom which caused it to be top heavy, leaning forward inside of perfectly balanced.
My bishop had far less planning than the other pieces, I was running low on time. I did most of my tests in Illustrator and trusted the shape as I drew it.
The first picture was my original plan and shape for my vine, but I realized it copied the shape and outline of the knight so I had to make a new vine. This second design is much cleaner to me, I like it because it’s smoother, and it looks less awkward. The leaves were the same for each vine. All I had to do was make a cut about halfway deep into the leaf and 0.08in wide because that was how thick my sheet of acrylic was. This and the pawns are the two pieces that I never had time to make a test cut so I had to design it and cut at as my immediate final. This was a bit disappointing because if I didn’t like the way it looked or if I measured something wrong, I would just have to deal with it. Luckily, this didn’t happen.
I think the rook was one of the best represented pieces. The rook can move any number of spaces vertically or horizontally, just like how tree roots grow wherever they can. The rook is also a sturdy piece, like a stump. It is reliable and secure. This piece stumped me a bit. I didn’t know how to balance this shape on the tips of roots, and it wasn’t like the others either. The rest of the pieces have flat split form bottoms, ensuring balance.
I did many tests on this piece, trying to see how many split form roots I could fit before it failed. I tried to add more because I wasn’t sure if the four corners would be enough to keep it standing. I also changed my layout a few times, trying to add more stability in the middle.
The first one was my first plan, to only have half roots as well as the full stump. Unfortunately, these pieces were too small and delicate to stay together so I came up with a new template. The second and final attempt worked much better, with clear stability and balance.
Here is my first test cut of the newest template, but the cuts were too wide, just like the other test cuts. I redid it with the same template but a smaller slice in the middles.
The pawn was under-researched on my notes page. I did some background work where I just research the different leaf shapes and vectorized them. From the outline, I created designs inside the leaves as their veins. At first, I was going to make all the pawns identical but I had some extra time so I figured it would be worth it to see some diversity in the leaves.
All of these shapes and designs worked fine with the half circle bases. All except the last leaf shape. You can see that this is the only leaf shape without a somewhat flat bottom. Due to this, it was very much top heavy and it kept leaning to one side or another instead of staying upright in the middle, like all the others did.
I replaced the last leaf design with this one instead. I made sure the bottom was flat and the design was symmetrical, so the weight would be balanced. I didn’t have time to make the vein designs but the leaves are so small so its hardly noticeable.
In hindsight, if I knew I would only be working with acrylic, I probably wouldn’t have chosen an acrylic board as our base. They blend into each other and practically become invisible. With a little editing, I can make them pop so no worries. This is a raw image.