Chandelier Saga Part 1: Conception

Chandelier Saga Part 1: Conception

A bit over two months ago, I was contacted by someone with whom I used to work, who now works with The Possible Project, a non-profit youth entrepreneurship outreach program thing. They were having a huge fundraiser gala at the beginning of October, and wanted to commission a big hanging chandelier as a focal point for the banquet. They're getting ready to build themselves a maker space, complete with a laser cutter and other tools, so they wanted the piece to show off rapid fabrication in some way, probably by having the piece made largely of laser-cut wood.

I was given pretty free range, with the understanding that I would come in every week or two and show the kids in the program what I was doing, giving them a view at how one might go about making a big project, and getting input from them about the design. The goal was to be able to have them also help with assembly, if possible.

Since I don't especially want to take up too much vertical space on people's feeds, jump the break for the early stages of my design process:

The first thing I did was to stay up for a while one night when I was already kind of punchy and just spew ideas down onto a page. Most of them were laser-cut wood ideas, though a few of them I was less sure about how to actually make them.

Having done that, I crawled the internet for precedents, and gave my first talk to the kids about what sort of things are possible with the medium. When doing something new, I always think it's a good idea to look around and see what sorts of solutions other people have come up with. It's a way of getting some inspiration going, finding ideas that you can riff on, and also get a sense for what sorts of ideas people haven't much tackled yet. (In fact, a large part of why I started working with leather was that, while working at a laser-cutting shop, I was looking around for materials that lasered well but not many people were using. And I ended up with leather.) Here are some of my favorites. Actually, one sentence is not quite enough.

And then I started sketching, both digitally and physically:

There was a major consideration that steered my thinking at this point: size. They wanted the final piece to be just about as big as could be made while still fitting inside someone's car to travel to its final destination. The thing is, the laser cutters I have access to are only so big--18 by 32 inches, to be precise. So anything large has to be constructed of smaller pieces. At the same time, I was told that the heaviest the riggers would hang something for the event was 75 lbs. That meant the ideas that involved big planes of material were right out.

So I decided to try to make it as a surface built up from small units connected together, making a skin that was light and self-supporting, without needing all the pieces to be hung off of a structural skeleton. This also meant that I shouldn't need to construct large structural ribs up out of smaller parts, which I was glad about. I was thinking about going for something built like one of the concepts I prototyped in paper, but with a more expansive and amorphous shape, and possibly with a second layer of skin inside the outer one.

But, everyone loved liked the idea with the overlapping scales and light emanating out from inside. Including me. I was a bit hesitant because I was pretty sure it would take more careful geometry shenanigans and tweaking than the other ideas, and I had only so much time to work on it. But I went for it.

What followed were quite a few rounds of strenuous modeling in Rhino broken up with cutting and assembling prototypes. But I think that's enough for this post. Stay tuned for Part 2!

Small version of the huge pangolin chandelier is looking super good. I'm super excited.

This is actually the second version I cut of this so far, with an updated and much improved internal support structure. I'll talk about it more in-depth when I continue writing out the chandelier saga, but right now I just have to share this.

Finally took video of a dragon tail being swung. It's quick and not perfect, but it exists! Next time I'll try to figure out why it didn't record audio, and also I'll have a tripod.

Because chainmail isn't rigid, these tails swing very smoothly. Fluid, sinuous, curling and extending as gravity and inertia dance with each other. So much better than a fabric tail with stuffing.

Also, a milestone to note: This page just passed 256 followers! That's 2^8 people. And that's awesome. Thank you all. I'm happy to be able to make things that you enjoy.

This dragon tail is made of standard aluminum scales, with a blue anodized aluminum underbelly. It's my standard length of 35 inches long, and that's mostly it. Classic and simple. But at the request of the commissioner, it does have an engraving on the scales on the underside, right below the belt loops where it's attached. (The tail was commissioned as a gift.)

And I guess as an added bonus, the photo with the engraving gives a good shot of the belt loop attachments. There are two straps (made of stainless steel in a European 6-in-1 pattern) that your belt threads through, and if you want to make sure the tail stays well in place when you're wearing it, in between the two loops on the tail you can also thread the belt through the belt loop in the center of the back of your pants.

If you like these tails I make, how about checking out this page with information about them? http://armoreddragon.tumblr.com/tails (My commission queue is currently kind of deep, though. I'm working as fast as I can.)

I went out with a friend and got some photos of a bunch of the leather bracelets that I'd neglected getting photos of for a while! I won't link to these individually, but all these designs are up on my Etsy shop.

Here are progress shots of a leather helm I just finished up. Another post with photos of it finished will follow.

I did the designing in Rhino, which is a 3D modeling program I've been using ever since architecture school. It was unexpectedly frustrating to find a 3D scan of a head, but I finally found one on Thingiverse with a creative commons license, which I am grateful for. I really wanted to get the geometry for a head right, that was the whole point.

To be honest, this particular design I was thinking of mostly as a test or proof of concept. I'm planning on making more in a similar manner, and I figure I'll work on more compelling shaping and detailing for those, but I wanted to just make a smooth one first to make sure it worked. I didn't want it to be completely plain, though, so once I'd gotten it cut I punched holes for purposes of putting spikes through.

Then I had the question of what color to do. I figured I could just do a plain black, and with all the spikes it would be extravagant but not out of genre for punk/goth/industrial or something. But I wasn't super excited about that, and I realized that there were 6 sections, and after some agreeing suggestions from a friend, I decided to go for a huge rainbow. Which means it's completely ridiculous, and a good contender for the most outlandish piece I've made to date.

For future versions, I think I'll try with thicker leather. I also figure I'll do some toying with making the pieces fold/bend like spiky scales or something, which would give me something more in keeping with many other of my designs. And maybe also some different patterns of breaking up the surface into panels. And definitely riveting the pieces together, that would be much faster.

Anyway, next up will be photos of the final piece. But not now, tomorrow. It's time for bed.