Inspiration

Salak (snake fruit) is a fruit with reptile-like skin texture — hence its English name. Some features I wanted to focus on from the chosen inspiration:

• Overlapping layers — creating tactile quality
• Converging elements — descending size
• Colour gradient

 

Exploration

1. Laser engrave
   • laser etched a gradient, inspired by the similar diffusing colours in the moodboard
   • arranged them in descending order in size to create a converging effect
   • sewed the pieces such that they are overlapping
     

     The gradient created was not as smooth as i had expected – they came out as dots instead but it was a nice additional tactile effect. However, at the tips, the high laser power burned the wood away so it became its lighter base colour.

2. Knitting + bleaching
   • knitted different types of patterns that resemble the texture of the fruit (bubble and fish scale pattern)
   • hand-brushed bleach onto the cotton knit to create the gradient
     

     Bleaching process — the colours were hard to control so the gradient was not achieved properly. In order to make the gradient more visible, it would be better to paint in layers with waiting time in between.

     

     The 3D effect of the knit flattened down a little after bleach because of the patting motion of the brush when bleaching. The black and bright yellow colours are also too contrasting — perhaps the piece could be sprayed with bleach one last time so a more brown colour forms as the base.

3. Smocking
   • found a pattern that resembles the fruit texture so I tried it out
   • it’s a pretty straightforward technique and I’m not able to create the gradient through bleaching, so I don’t think I will use it as the final
     

     no gradient, no converging effect

4. Thermoplastic
   • laser cut mould of different sizes to boil the thermoplastic in
   • arranged the moulds to create overlapping layers
     

     Arranging process — it was a little tricky to get the mould in the exact position I want them to be

     

     The final outcome gave a nice overlapping texture and soothing tactile quality — however because the moulds were rotating in weird angles, the pattern looked more random than controlled

 

Things improved from exploration to final

Chosen technique: laser engrave

• etched gradient; in order to resolve the issue of burnt laser etched tips, the power for the laser etching was decreased from 70 to 50
• plywood colour; after testing out the laser etching on three types of wood (light plywood, dark plywood and MDF), the dark plywood was chosen as the outcome of the gradient looks more natural — the light plywood matches awkwardly with the burnt wood shade, while the MDF creates black etching instead of a natural dark brown
• plywood thickness; the thickness of the plywood is reduced to 3mm as the plywood used in the exploration is too thick and the overlapping texture created is awkward
• pattern shape; changed to look more dynamic and more interesting when overlapped

 

Process to final

Chosen object: drawstring pouch

The reason why I chose a drawstring pouch is because of its shape’s resemblance to the fruit itself, and how the form echoes the shape of the individual laser cut pieces.

 

 

Final outcome

 

Application

(after photoshopping these, I had the urge to actually make the other two come to life — as actual objects — so I guess I know what I’m doing over the winter holiday)