Maps & Intro into Sketchfab
This week I started to procrastinate about getting my assignment started and the stress of work piling up made me feel quite overwhelmed again. I will admit that because of Covid, I used it as a bit of a leeway into taking it easy, but the consequence was being behind on class content and not experimenting enough to be more comfortable with this project. This being said I was pretty in my head this week and I feel mentally overwhelmed, so I did not get up to much. I watched the Sketchfab intro, but I did not do the exercise due to personal responsibilities outside of Uni and my mental state crashing for a bit.
On Sunday evening I finalised my design for assignment 1, I decided upon a staff that is Chinese inspired. I knew off that bat that I wanted my design to be based around red lanterns and Chinese Lantern Plants. My mum is Chinese, so I grew up celebrating with red lanterns 2 times a year, once for Lunar New Year and Moon Festival so the warm red glow of these lanterns is very comforting and nostalgic to me. Whilst also doing some research for my design, I found some images of the ‘Chinese Lantern Plant’ which fit my aesthetic and gave me the idea of having the lantern hang from a branch and have the plants growing out to marry the elements together.
(Design page)
(Inpiration page)
Like my design page shows, I really liked the shape of Bonsai trees, keeping to the theme and adding a very organic flow to the staff’s centre piece. As for the staff’s main body, I envisioned jade as Chinese history says that it symbolises: serenity, tranquillity, and purity. This is what I’d like to encapsulate in my model, so it fits perfectly. Lastly, for the hilt I looked at authentic Chinese sword hilts and found that I really like the shapes and their engravings. The make for a very intricate look. Although, I’m unsure that I’ll have the time to model or texture them in so I’ll leave them there a possibility that may get scrapped. Most hilts that I saw also had little tassels hanging from them, so I included one to give the staff extra character.
Final Design:
