Unconventional Chess Concepts

This week, I came up with a couple concepts for unconventional chess pieces. I will model the most practical model in Rhino and then 3D print it! 

I have included the concepts below:

A) Rubber Hose Hand Gestures

By using different hand gestures, I attempted to recreate the shape of traditional chess pieces. It was a fun exercise because it allowed me to consider hands in a new way. I literally sat down for about an hour and stared at my hand as I contorted it in dozens of different positions.  

I am not sure how to create these hands, they are made by multiple curves. I looked at existing 3D hand models and found one on this Turbosquid page that looks like what I am trying to achieve:

It looks like they made the original form with polygons and then used a tool to smooth it out. I am not sure if this is something that can be done with Rhino, I need to continue investigating. Or maybe the smooth model was made first and a low poly one was made after? 

Also, I am not sure if this type of design would be better done with another software that is intended for mesh modelling. Since I wasn't able to do deeper research on how to model this concept, I thought of a second concept.

B) Ocean Set

This concept was inspired by a pearl trochus shell that my dad found in Aruba. I was working at my desk when it caught my eye and I began thinking of ways to turn shells into a chess set. The trochus shell, while beautiful, didn't work as a chess piece. However, upon researching different oceanic lifeforms, I found some shells, corals, and seahorses that would inspire my chess set. 

First sketches I made when I thought of the concept

I specifically chose objects that had parallels to the pieces in traditional chess sets. 

I will briefly describe the reasoning behind the other selections:

Pawn - Small, common shell which can be designed to have a flat bottom. Like the pawn, it doesn't have a fancy design and allows the other forms to stand out.

Bishop - The olive shell can also be redesigned to have a flat base to make the piece stand on its own. It has a similar width/height ratio to the traditional chess piece. The shell also has a vertical slit in it, kind of like the bishop.

Rook - The coral tubes remind me of towers. If I make a cluster of 6 coral tubes, it will allude to the six rectangular extrusions on the traditional rook piece.

Knight - The seahorse looks like the original horse. This one has the most obvious parallel.

Queen - I chose a queen conch because it looks majestic. Also, it's called a queen conch so it is meant to be :)

King - The hemifusus tuba shell is longer than the Queen conch so it would look like the King next to the queen.

After thinking more about this concept, and making all the sketches, I realized that this project would be very complex to make. The shells have a lot of complicated surface features to recreate using NURBS. Also, the shell itself is a complex spiralling surface. So, I came up with a third concept.  I will include my third concept in this blog post as soon as possible. I spent a lot of time working through the two previous concepts, so I ran out of time to include the third concept. 

The third concept would be a backup for the first concept. If I find an easy way to create one hand, then I will be able to apply a similar technique to the rest of the hands.