A Game of Chess
As part of a class on the study of form at my old faculty, an assignment to design a chess game pops up from time to time. Just as with most of these classes, students are asked to define and frame a creative space by making a mood board. In designing the individual chess pieces, the abstract image is transformed into tangible form, while keeping true to the tone the collage is trying to convey.
With this particular collage, I tried to achieve a mix of the natural on the left and the artificial on the right, which would come as a natural evolution by joining these two. In reality, I might have gotten a bit carried away, but I still like the image as a whole. From this collage, I decided I wanted to start with a base form for the pawn, which would reiterate on itself and evolve into subsequent pieces.
I based the pawn on a zygote, consisting only of a sphere and a curled-up tail. While the knight and the bishop equal each other in points (three), I had to make a choice which had to come first. The knight can only jump and has a somewhat awkward movement pattern, so I gave the knight two extra appendages, on which it can stand. The legs are bent inwards, which give the knight the ability to jump by rapidly stretching them.
The bishop evolved from the knight by growing another leg, giving it four fully functional legs. With these legs it can run across the board, yet only diagonally. While four legs is enough for the rook to move, I felt it needed some extra defenses. I inverted its spherical head and gave it four stumps, which may be seen as merlons. Now it only moves orthogonally.
When a pawn reaches the end of the board, it may be promoted to any piece other than a pawn or a king. Most people will choose a queen, but if the queen is still on the board, a fallen rook may be used and placed upside down to denote it's a queen. The queen is exactly that here, an upside down rook. I extended the stumps and made them into legs, creating a majestic crown out of its former legs. To complete the cycle, I decided that the king is the one to give birth to new pawns. Inside its crown, it holds an egg, which holds a new pawn. This heavy load restricts its movement though, making the king slow and cumbersome.
This class also requires that students create at least three models of their chess game. Because of the pieces' almost alien appearance, I had to resort to using clay, which I supported with a some steel wire. After baking the fimo clay, I sanded and polished the models. Initially, I wanted to spray paint the models, but I ended up liking the marble structure caused by shaping it.