For this craft exercise, we were required to design and create something tactile and tangible. I have personally developed an interest in furniture design and communicating an idea within this space. For this project, I created a 3D model, shown later, based on a design for a dining chair that I created. The chair, titled 'TUSK', investigates themes of conservation and how our consumption can be interlinked with the future of many threatened species even if not explicitly. The chair makes use of an elephant tusk motif, as seen in more detail below, to bring ecological consideration into the everyday environment of the user.

This 3D rendering of the chair was created based on the below process sketches.

Based on the 3D rendering, I wished to make a small scale model of the chair, roughly 1:20 in size, to be able to see it physically rather than just a visualisation.

I feel that through engaging in this process, I was able to find freedom in making something that appealed to my current interests.This built on the previous tangible design exercise where we were required to make products from triplex board, exposing us to making physical models of something not as it would finally be but to gain an understanding of its space.Through learning more outside of Vega in terms of 3D digital modelling, I was able to gain skills in visualising how a product would look and broaden the horizons of what I can see myself doing in the future in terms of a career. It further showed me that the BA CBC degree is something that is incredibly versatile as it encourages self-exploration while giving a creative grounding to work from. I feel that this is definitely an area of interest for me that I would like to further develop and learn more about through self-study and engagement. 

To make a physical model of the chair, I drew out the measurements of each component. I made use of epoxy clay which hardens into rigid plastic when Part A and part B are mixed together. At first, I tried to build each part individually on top of the dimension sketch, but the epoxy was not hard enough for this. Instead, I cut out the outlines of each component to place on the epoxy when slightly drier. These were then cut out and later thickened individually. Where needed, the parts were sanded down to smooth them out and painted after joining. The 'cushion' of this was created in a similar way but covered in black material rather than paint to achieve more realism.