Portfolio

I design all sorts of things using all sorts of tools. Below you can see an assortment of my surface designs and (farther down) some 3D design projects. If you'd like to know more about me or contact me for work, check out my about page or send me a message. Thanks for looking!

Surface Design

The surface designs in this collection were created primarily for sale on Spoonflower, a print-on-demand service for fabric and wallpaper. Some were weekly contest entries with a particular theme requirement, some were designed for my own amusement. I enjoy using different techniques and styles to achieve a variety of finished creations. Click any of the above images for more information on the process of creating it.

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3D Design

I became interested in 3D design when I was unable to find a part for the papercut lights I was designing. Since then I've learned at least the basics of several 3D design programs as a way to manufacture things easily. My skills here are not in the sculpting/rendering end but in the creation of functional parts, which includes a jewelry collection (which you can see in my shop here!).

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Project 1:

Papercut Lamps

I designed a collection of papercut lamps using Yupo paper (polypropylene). I initially designed them to use wooden spokes to hold the shade to the bulb cord.

I designed them in Illustrator and used a 24" vinyl cutter to cut the Yupo "paper". It worked beautifully!

The one thing I wasn't in love with was the connector. It fits this particular cord set perfectly, but I needed it to fit a variety of cord sets. Also, it was a plumbing part that I drilled holes in, so not the most elegant solution.

I did a ton of sketches. Here's just one spread.

I learned Tinkercad to create these. It was extremely intuitive and ran on my very old computer at the time. I've graduated to other programs but still love this one.

None of those previous designed worked perfectly. They were costly to 3D print and didn't secure the spokes well. Back to the sketchbook.

This ended up being my final design. Clunky to design in Tinkercad, but it's the level I was at and it was successful.

Lots of facets, but an elegant, lightweight design.

And here's the final ring 3D printed by Shapeways with green bike spokes to replace the original wooden ones.

Bottom view with spokes snapped in.

The spokes slide in from below and have a very satisfying click when snapped into place.

Project 2:

Roman Key Ring

I came across an image of an ancient Roman ring with a key attached that I thought was pretty neat.

I was still using Tinkercad at this point, which worked really well for this design as it was mostly cylinders and cuboids. Easy peasy.

I then took it into Meshmixer to pound away at it and give it some age. This was my first use of Meshmixer. It's a nice program which I use all the time now for finishing.

Here's the print in bronze from Shapeways. I got it unpolished hoping it would show the "hammered" texture better. It did, but it also showed the print lines. Not an exact replica in the end, but it really wasn't an exercise in perfection, just an excuse to play with the tools.

And here is where I tried to darken the bronze and used the wrong chemical. Hint: ammonia=bright turquoise! Lesson learned. READ the instructions, don't just skim them.

Project 3:

Lawnsdale School

So I fell in love with this boarded up old three room school near my house way back in high school. I'd always dreamt of buying it and turning it into a house.

But it was not meant to be. It was demolished a couple of years ago, but not before I took a bunch of pictures of the now-unboarded-up school. Now I dream of rebuilding it!

I was able to get a good aerial view of the lot and building with measurements on the county plat site.

I first worked out the measurements and layout (as best I could tell from my photos. I should've ventured all the way in...) in Affinity Designer.

Here it is about halfway through. This was my first SketchUp project. It's a pretty straightforward program, but nothing at all like Tinkercad.

I enjoyed building the windows.

And the doors were fun, too. I only wish I'd made my own brick pattern repeat. It's pretty low-res. I'll get to that someday!

Side view. I didn't venture into landscaping on this project.

Front view with some of my surface designs as wallpaper.

Project 4:

Jeju Island Ring

This project began with a unique bit of street map from South Korea. I created a vector image of the shape in Affinity Designer.

I needed a 3D program that could apply a vector image to a curved surface. Fusion 360 has just such a function in its sheet metal workspace. Here I started with a cylinder with a wedge cut out of one side.

The missing wedge on my cylinder allowed me to unfold it in order to apply the vector shape I created earlier.

I removed the excess material and extruded the ovals on the right to make them thicker.

Refolded faces of sheet metal returns it to a ring shape.

I then edited the original sketch and connected the ring ends to make it whole, and exported it to Meshmixer to finish it.

Meshmixer is a fantastic program for softening and smoothing the precise geometry created in Fusion 360.

The final ring after it was 3D printed in wax and cast in silver by Shapeways!

Project 5:

L'Aiguillon-sur-Mer Necklace

I loved these fisheries on the south coast of France and thought the design would make a neat statement necklace to add to my map jewelry collection.

I worked out the vectors in Affinity Designer. I had to shorten the design from the original on the upper left due to printing constraints at Shapeways.

I layered the shapes to make extruding easier in Fusion 360. This avoids any overlapping vectors which often confuse the program.

After importing the svg file to Fusion 360, I extruded the halves to different heights. I then exported the stl file to further sculpt it.

In Meshmixer, I smoothed the sharp edges using the refine brush.

After smoothing, I separated the faces so I could apply a stencil brush (some shells I made in Affinity Photo).

The necklace after a final light smoothing of the whole piece. I also turned the corners, basically just to meet the printing requirements.

Final pendant, 3D printed in steel and sintered in bronze.