Michael Rodriguez: week 9-10 box project

 

Concept:

My concept for this project came when I was looking at the options for what kind of container or shelf I could make, when I came across a paint storage design. I immediately had to pick it because I myself am very into the miniature painting hobby, and find my paints often disorganized and out of order. Since I wanted to laser cut my final product, I decided that having a final product with a functional purpose would be best for this project. however, with the lack of surface area that the shelf had, it was going to be a challenge to give it enough design to be able to pass it off as a project that made full use of the techniques taught in class.

Process:

In the process of making the box, I wanted to add designs to the panel that goes under the circular slots where the paints are meant to go. the challenge here was that the designs had to be accurately placed to prevent the paints themselves from falling into a hole or recess and not standing up straight. I used tools such as the ortho snap and linear dimension to make sure that the designs for the bottom panels gave enough space for the paints to rest on the in-between area, and while the paints were slotted in the holes, the containers would cover up the positive space untouched by the design, maximizing the amount of space the design would take up. one other problem that I had was that for some reason, the pegs of the panels were too tall to fit into the slots of the side panels, which would hold them in place. to fix this, I produced a basic cube like shape, and after measuring the proper distance, used the cube and the tool Boolean difference to cut off sections of the pegs that were too tall, and made them slot in that way. 

Materials: 

In the materials of the final design and final render, I simply wanted to use a basic wood texture to exemplify the realism of the object that would soon be laser cut out. I used a technical shader in the rhino software to get the shadows to be more pronounced because the shadows became less apparent when adding the wood texture to the basic render. with the technical shader and the wood texture, I now had a realistic idea of what the final product may come out to be, and could use the dimensions to start making a mock up blue print to experiment with paints on. this way, when I finally get the painting storage container, I could be ready to paint over the wood texture and make my new painting storage shelf look good atop my miniature painting desk space.