MBFW Buyers Market

Design@50 has been invited to display work at the Mercedes Benz Fashion week buyers market which starts today until Sunday afternoon. Due to me not having any physical pieces to showcase I have decided to try my hand at rendering my jewellery using Vray and display them on a large TV screen. I must admit that it isn't the easiest thing todo, especially using this new version for the very first time and the layout being very different to what I remember. Below are a few of my trial attempts.

Rim inspired Rings

 

Above is an image that I found on Pinterest, it depicts a Mustang with some really cool rims. I decided to use the rim as a source of inspiration to create gents bands.

 

 

Starting Afresh, well kinda....

So after changing my subject matter in terms of sculptural forms from ''sculptures'' to cars, I decided to get started by browsing images which I took a liking too, I then created a mood board and started to manufacture jewellery based loosely around the image.

 

This is the first image I decided to work with, It is an Image of a Mercedes Benz GL 63 Amg, I was drawn to this image because I found the mesh work of the grill interesting as well as its distinct angular lines.

 

Some of the renderings of the jewellery below vary ever so slightly, I decided to have fun and create a collection of designs and at the very end choose the most appealing.

 

 

3D printing cars

I find it really intriguing that in this day and age 3D printers are being used to make almost anything under the sun! the images below are of a real life working car that was 3D printed in parts and assembled .

 

 

 

 

 

Article available at http://mashable.com/2014/10/07/i-drove-a-3d-printed-car/#_

How to go about working with my new passion

So I've decided to keep things very simple with regards to the references being used towards my B-tech. I will still be using Pinterest to create mood boards of vehicles that I have a liking towards, from this point, I will create jewellery based loosely around the sculptural form of the vehicle depicted.

Speed Test Retake

So after having a discussion with Edna (my boss) I found out that milligrain this close around small settings are usually done by a setter after the stone is set. The reason for this is simple, if the setter is undercutting to set the diamond and if he slips, it will damage the milligrain and it would look horrible when finishing up the ring. Also that there must be a minimum spacing of at least 0.6mm from the edge of the stone to the edge of the ring. With all this in mind, she asked me to retake the test.

This is the outcome, not too shabby seeing that it took me 2 hours this time round as opposed to the original 5. I guess practice makes perfect.

First Week on the Job

Below are some of the rings I had to manufacture on Rhino during my first few days at Design@50

Speed Test Fail

Literally 10 days after I started, I was asked to do a speed test. We were given a black and white image of a ring and asked to create something that looked identical. Having just started here I was really stressed and the time limit of 5 Hours didn't help at all, especially since I did not ever manufacture a ring like this and never having used the tools I was told to use to create it.

 

5 hours later and in a frantic rush to complete my ring; this is the outcome; not exactly like the image....A fail in my opinion, maybe if given more time I might have done a better job but like the CAD lecturer has been saying these last few days 'time is money'.

Realizing my Passion

During my final B-Tech a few weeks ago, we touched briefly on the topic of being passionate about our work. After discussing this with my peers, I have finally convinced myself that I am in fact not actually passionate about sculptures; which I had used as my reference thus far whilst doing my B-tech. My passion has four wheels and a steering wheel, yes you've guessed it! cars! with my B-tech title being 'using sculptural forms as a reference for creating jewellery', I am of the opinion that I am able to still retain this title as I understand sculptural form to be loosely defined as an object that is 3-Dimensional and with cars being 3D it kind of fits perfectly!

Day 1 - Design @ 50

After finally trekking all my stuff up to the 011's , I started my first day at Design@50. I was amazed at the fact that the very first thing on the list of things I needed to do was orthographic hand sketches of pictures of jewellery which were supplied by the 'Client'. It just shows that before you even start designing using CAD you need to know how to do basic hand drawings of the front, top and side views of the article of jewellery.