Concept/Inspiration
For my project, I wanted to make all four sides have the same design but with different iterations, similarly to how the example we were shown in class had. I really like bunnies and I think that they have a fun design, so I decided to work with them. I am also a big fan of Keith Haring's pop art, so I spent a lot of time thinking about how I could incorporate a thick outline and negative space into the design. The top of the design was initially supposed to project stars onto the ceiling, but I ended up changing the design and adding parchment paper behind each panel, so the "star projection" idea didn't end up working out.
 |
| Orthographic Sketches |
 |
| Reference/Inspo Collage |
Process
First, I traced over my orthographic sketches with the curves tool without worrying about which line was which kind of cut. After I finished the bunnies, I went in with the Trim tool and spent a little while duplicating lines and trimming them so that I could divide them into inner cuts, outer cuts, vector engravings, and raster engravings. There was probably a more efficient way to do this, but this method worked and eventually became muscle memory. Each side of the lamp is unique so I spent a fair amount of time doing this.
I had a version of the file in which I gave the top the initial "star projection" idea, but I couldn't arrange them in a way I liked. I ended up picking my favorite bunny from the sides and made him much bigger. For the final touch, I used ArrayCrv with a small, chunky star to arrange a small frame around the bunny.
One thing I struggled with was figuring out how to make the inner outlines between bunnies on the side that is entirely inner cuts. My initial sketch's lines were way too skinny, so the material would have caught on fire. I ended up having to slightly change the dimensions of my project to the final size of 4.5"x7", but I ended up liking this size a lot. The new size allowed me to make the outline between individual bunnies .125" thick with the Offset command. I would go through and select curves that needed this outline, offset them by 1/8", and then trim them down to however I needed them.
This project required a bit more precision than our previous ones. Because of that, I used the Relocate Gumball tool a lot. This proved extremely helpful as I didn't run into any issues of pieces not snapping into place or tools not working correctly. Being able to snap pieces so easily helped in setting up the laser cut file as well as assembling the 3D model. When it came time to prepare the file for laser cutting, I added Hatches into the areas I wanted to engrave with the Hatch command. Unfortunately, it took a while before I realized I could do many of them at once.
The Edge Analysis tool shows naked edges because I had to extrude out my vector lines in order for them to show up in Keyshot. The paper is also a plane rather than a very thin rectangular prism. The model itself does not have any naked edges.
 |
| Laser Cut Layers |
 |
| 3D Model Layers |
 |
| 3D Model Edge Analysis |
 |
| Rhino Orthographic Views |
Materials
In Keyshot, I tried to mimic the materials I would be using in real life. There were no MDF/cardboard textures by default, so I scaled down the wood grain in one of of the basic wood materials and it matched well. I picked a darker and different wood for the engravings because the engravings had a different texture than the non-engraved wood. I experimented with the translucent and emissive materials, but I couldn't seem to get them to work despite the light bulb being on and the paper being a translucent material. Even though I struggled with that, I think the rendering came out cutely.
 |
| Keyshot Orthographic Views |
Since this will be an item displayed inside, I picked a basic desk background and tweaked one of the indoor lighting environments. I made the environment warm to mimic the lighting of my real apartment.
 |
| Final Render |
 |
| Detail Renders |
I split a 4'x8' 1/8'' thick MDF board with one of my friends. MDF proved extremely difficult to cut with since the Makerspace didn't have the specifications for this specific material, so we spent a lot of time figuring out the settings. It took many passes to get the pieces to cut all the way through due to the thick backing on one side so the edges of some cuts are a bit crispy, but I ended up liking the black gradient around the holes, especially against up the pale white parchment paper. At first, I was worried that the parchment paper would look cheap or cheesy, but I think that it came out well in the end. To assemble the piece, I used both rubber cement and Loctite superglue. I tried the superglue first but the material was very porous and seemed to not adhere well so I tried rubber cement. The superglue actually worked fine and just needed a little time to cure, but using both glue made the lamp extremely sturdy so I used a combination of them for the rest of the assembly. (I even dropped it on accident the other day and it didn't break at all!)
 |
| Lamp Final |
 |
| Lamp Details |
 |
| Lamp Orthographic Views |
No comments:
Post a Comment