Research & Concept

When thinking of objects that I could incorporate playfulness into I wanted to find an object that was something I could use often and that was part of my everyday life. While looking around my room I found an old incense burner that I had broke. After finding the burner I realized how it was very simple and plain it was so I decided that it would be a good object to inject a little playfulness into. I found more examples of incense burners and came to the realization that most incense burners are either very simple or solely acts as a decoration. Very rarely do the form/function of the object match its playfulness. The burner as a whole is designed as a tray that holds a burning incense while also catching the ash the comes off the incense stick as it continuously burns. There is usually a small hole or indent in the object for an incense stick to be placed in so that it can stand on its own and a tray that accompanies it to catch the ash that falls out. When I saw the form and shape of the incense burner I knew that this was the specific type of burner that I wanted to incorporate a whimsical aspect to.

After looking at the object for a while I realized that the incense stick reminded me of a long tongue that a snake or lizard usually has. The smoke at the end then reminded me of how dragons usually have smoke coming from their mouths. Because of that I plan on making this object whimsical by making it either into the shape of a snake or a dragon with the incense stick coming from its mouth to represent the tongue of the animal. I plan on making the tray that catches the ash into the body to imitate the shape of a snake/dragon with the tail twirling up at the end as well. Below you can find a sketch of the object.

Iterations

Unfortunately, my 3D print is still not finished and has a couple more hours to go before it is complete, but this is what has printed out so far. From what is currently printed, I am pretty happy with the outcome of the incense holder. The object looks very sturdy and the progress of the incense holder is shaping out nicely.

The process of figuring out the correct changes I needed to make for my self expression was slightly difficult. I had trouble honing in on a specific way to incorporate a whimsical and playful aspect to my self expression. I was stuck between a snake-like incense iteration and a dragon type of incense variation. I eventually figured that the function and whimsical aspect made more sense with the elements of a dragon. After finally committing to the idea of a dragon incense I had to figure out what was the most effective way of shaping the dragon so that the function of the incense stick was placed in a way that made the most sense. After receiving back some feedback I played with certain ways to shape the dragon. At first I wanted to make it so that the dragon incense holder was on its back but it was not sturdy enough on its back.

I then wanted to make it circular so that the head and tail touched but I had trouble creating a design that was circular but also effective enough to hold an incense stick in its mouth so that the stick wasn’t poking out awkwardly. After looking at more dragon incense designs on google, I then saw a reoccurring theme of placing the dragon on a mountain or on some rocks. That then gave me an idea of placing the dragon upright while resting on a valley of mountains. I thought that the mountains would be a perfect way to incorporate a tray that most incense burners have to catch the ash from the burning stick. This is how I came up with the final design below.

Below are my model iterations.

Overall, I had trouble with coming up with the correct dimensions for certain elements of the incense holder so that it was shaped correctly and under anticipated the amount of time it would take to 3D print. After facing these challenges I now have a better understanding of how to correctly format my object and will better anticipate printing out the holder in a more timely manner.

This is how the print came out altogether. The print took over 24 hours in total but still wasn’t where I wanted it to be as it was too small and very splotchy when it came to the dragon print.

After seeing the outcome of the dragon incense I decided that it would be more effective to do two separate prints that combine into one whole object. I decided on doing one dragon print and one incense base print.

Final Print & Reflection

The is the final print of my dragon incense holder. The incorporation of a dragon shaped incense holder with a mountain-like tray adds a sense of whimsicalness to a normal incense holder. The stick coming out of the dragon replicates smoke and fire coming out of a dragons mouth.

For the final print I decided that it would be more effectual for the entire piece to be two separate objects. This would lessen the print time and also allow for each print to have the ability to be much larger. The incense holder as a whole came together really nicely. It’s functional and has a nice aspect of playfulness within the design. The shape of the dragon is thick enough that it makes the object sturdy and the mouth is wide enough for an incense stick to fit through but small enough for the stick to not fall out. I made the tray have a small square hole within it so that the separate dragon print would be able to fit into the tray and stand on its own. The one aspect that didn’t come out the way I would have 100% liked is the tray of mountains. In my first test print, the layers of the small mountains came out nicely and there were no holes but the next couple of times I printed the tray there were weird holes that showed up in the middle of the print. So if i were to do another round of prints of the tray I would make the mountain points slightly thicker and keep the layer height at 0.15 so that less mistakes would occur.

Overall, I really like the results of the incense holder. I really enjoyed the dragon concept and liked creating the shape of the dragon on illustrator. I think the blending of the two objects could be more seamless but as a whole I still really enjoy my incense holder and can’t wait to use it.