Robert Manriquez: Week 2 Flashlight

Influence



 

            I was heavily influenced by Pelican Flashlights. Their product is simple, yet effective. I gravitated towards these flashlights due to my military background. We used to carry these around on every mission we went on. I wanted to do my take at their product and this is what I came up with. The button is modeled to have more of a tangible feel instead of their usual rubber button. The body is modeled roughly the same, and the head has this casing on it for the user to know, in the dark, which end is the front. I added a cord on the back end of the flashlight for the sake of tying the flashlight to whatever kit your person.



 

 

Technique

 

            The modeling techniques were primarily cylinders, truncated cones, unions, trims, polar arrays, and differences. The head of the flashlight is a truncated cone with multiple cylinders arrayed around the cone. I used the pipe (round end) on a curve for the cord on the rear end of the light. The button is a sphere that was cut by a plane, ellipses, and spheres. The button was definitely the most challenging part of creating the flashlight. I needed to union everything that was differencing from the button, and then make my cuts. The program kept crashing when I tried to accomplish this. So I then had to keep everything separate, make my cuts one by one, and then mold from there.

Material

The material was simple for me. I used anodized metals, axalta, and glass. The black portion is all anodized metal with varying types of blacks used. I went this route to give my light a shiny, worker, feel. The button is a red anodized metal, only so it would pop and stand out. The glass, for the lens, is reddish shade for nighttime usage. I figured that most of the time an individual is going to need their flashlight is for the nighttime, or in dark places where your eyes sensitivity is at a massive peak. The cord is shade of axalta. I went this route in order to keep the cord believable. I haven't seen a flashlight that required a shiny cord.