Tile
3D Printed Metal Tile
Project Brief
A 3 Dimensional tile, depicting a natural phenomenon.
Spring 2020
The project began with identifying a natural phenomenon that intrigued me, and creating 2D drawings based on my research and understanding of the phenomenon. My chosen phenomenon was the iridescence in Morpho butterfly wings.
I continued to create drawings, mostly in black and white. I experimented with charcoal, pen, and ink to capture the essence of the iridescent nature of butterfly wings.
I created vector drawings, and framed it into a 4" x 4" square, the dimensions of the final tile. I enjoyed the dynamic flowing lines that I had drawn in my sketchbook, and was exploring ways to convey the phenomenon of structural colors in butterfly wings by creating repetitive geometric patterns.
I created dynamic vector lines, referring to the image of the Morpho Butterfly wing. I then created an underlayer of the geometric patterns with three different shades of grey. I used a soft brush to create a gradient, in order to create a image file to be used to transform it into a 3D surface on Fusion 360.
