Concept:
When brainstorming for a design for the lamp, the first thing that came to my mind was traditional Chinese lamps/ lanterns. Because I am Chinese I thought it would be great to do something inspired by my culture. After some research on Chinese lantern designs, I decided to go with four traditional symbols, one on each side of the lamp that represents good luck/blessings. The first character fú means fortune or good luck. The second character lù stands for prosperity. The third character shoù represents longevity. Finally, the fourth and last character shuāngxǐ meaning double happiness, a character that is usually associated with love and marriage.
Techniques:
I started off with all my designs as curves for the laser cutting and assigned each component to its correct layer to be an outer/inner cut or a Vector/Rastor. The base designs used various commands such as 'Mirror' and 'Copy' to create the repeating patterns and shapes. For the 3D model, I used 'ExtrudeCrv' to extrude the sides of the lamp as a closed planar curve. I made my design for the four symbols in illustrator and brought them into Rhino3D, they were brought in as a 'Hatch', which was good for the laser cutting Rastor but not for the 3D model and Keyshot. I was able to use the command 'DupBorder' to make a border of curves around my hatch design and then 'PlanarSrf' to make the design a surface. I created the cutouts in the lamp by first making the shape of what I wanted to be cut in curves. For the symbols, I created a circle as an outline and then 'Explode' the border of the design and then 'Join' the appropriate curves to obtain the shape that I want to be cut out. Then I used the command 'ExtrudeCrv' and simply 'BooleanDifference' to create the inner cuts. To show the Rastor cuts I made a small indent using 'ExtrudeCrv' and 'BooleanDifference' as well and then moved the surface of the symbol in the indent. For the Vectors in the 3D model for Keyshot 'PlanarSrf' was utilized to get the surfaces. Then I used 'Rotate' on each side and 'Move' to make them fit into a box.
Materials:
The main material for the lamp was a birch wood board that I decided to give a cherry wood stain in order to get a more oriental aesthetic. Painted the main symbols gold and the Vector patterns red, both colors are important in Chinese culture, red for good luck and gold for wealth, they can be seen everywhere on Chinese New Year and they are also colors of the Chinese Flag. For the post-processing, I buffed, polished, and waxed the painted wood, then I put acetate paper behind the four symbols to imitate the look of traditional paper lamps and lanterns. However, because the vector lines were so thin it was hard for me to find a way to color them red. The rasters were also not as deep as I thought that they were going to be but other than that overall I am content with the outcome.
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