Inspiration:
For this project, I wanted to design a piece of adornment that I could wear with my pirate costume I will likely be wearing this year. I began first by researching other types of jewelry and treasures commonly associated with pirates and compiled a list of reference images to go with the idea I had. Initially, I had the idea of making a bracelet based on a skull and cross-bones design but decided a necklace would be best for the scale I would need to print on. I then had the idea to base my piece on a gold doubloon and have a weathered and old gold finish to it to make it seem as if it had seen many battles. From there I tried to stray from such a commonly used design, and make something unique. I gave the original circle design I was using points in reference to a compass and came up with a pattern I could use various commands in Rhino for that made the design simpler yet give the medallion a handmade effect by not overcomplicating it. My last change to my design came with the removal of the swords in my sketch, as it felt like needless overdesign and because of the scale would have almost certainly resulted in broken pieces.
Process:
After having a drawing concept, the first step of my process was to import my references into Rhino. The hardest part for me at the beginning was figuring out how to accurately make the shape I was attempting to replicate from my drawings. I ended up starting from scratch and drew a circle in Rhino, and using tangent o snaps along with the control point curve tool for the shaping. With a single point made I could perfectly replicate it using the Mirror command, using this method to have the entire shape. From here the next challenge I faced was to have the shape be one single poly line, where the CurveBoolean command was able to come to the rescue. Now with a full shape, I made use of the PlanarSrf command and the ExtrudeSurface command to make the solid that would end up being the base of my entire model. BooleanDifference helped with much of the detailing as well such as with the skill, in combination with the other methods I had mentioned.
Materials:
Within keyshot, I assigned a gold metal material to the entire medallion. I ended up finding a texture online for weathered old gold and used the bump map and color provided by it to give it a more realistic-looking finish. I had gone back into rhino to model a sort of mannequin for the medallion to have an accurate size reference which took far longer than I ever expected. Keeping the pirate theme and giving the necklace more pop, I textured the mannequin with a stone texture I was also able to find online. My light source for the gray background photos was a 2 sided light fixture that kept good lighting from the sides, and less so in the middle. When it came to the modeling being worn by the mannequin, I used a desert-type environment as I thought it was appropriate for the theme, and rotated the environment until I was happy with the lighting I was getting.
Post-processing and Final Product:
Printing and post-processing took by far the most effort and new experience on my part. The print had come out decent on my home printer, except for too small of a wall to have any rigidity for where the chains would link to the medallion. This piece broke off completely and after sanding down my project by hand, I did surgery with superglue and an older print to remake the loop. I went to town with a free l for weather details on the piece and I love the texture I was able to give it. I used 3+ coats of primer/filler and scraped away at this for even more detail. All that was left was to spray paint it gold, over multiple layers. I found some leather string material to use as a necklace with the print, and I’m super happy with how it ended up turning out.
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