Flower and Leaf Coat Hook

 

      

Final Sketch

This is a sketch of the final design for a flower and leaf coat hook, with a more detailed flower extending from the middle and two curled leaves extending from the sides. The plate, which will be attached to the wall with two screws on the top and bottom, has an oval shape with a concave surface to add to the organic and natural design. If this design is printed with the back of this coat hook as the base of the 3D print, moving upwards to printing till the top of the flower may reduce the support material needed. Extending the flower and leaf sections straight out of the coat hook base could eliminate the need for support material.

Screenshots of the 3D Modelling Process

To begin the modelling process, I sketched out the different sections of the Flower and Leaf Coat Hook. I simplified them into basic geometric shapes to explore which commands might be helpful in building or carving the structure as needed. 

Then, I started working in Rhino to implement these sketched ideas.

The boolean difference command was used to create a concave coat hook base. 

Loft command was used to create the curved hook. 

Boolean union command was used to join the hook with the base.

The flower was created by joining 4 ellipses with the boolean union command.

The taper command was used to create a more pointed end for the top of the flower.

The flower was then rotated at an angle and joined to the hook. 

The initial leaf structure was created using the boolean intersection command between two ellipses. Another ellipse was used to carve out a concave shape on the under side of the leaf using the boolean difference command. 

Then, the bend command was used to shape the leaf further.

Finally, the structure was stretched to further elongate the leaf.

The mirror command was used to position the leaves opposite each other after adjusting the appropriate angle for their protrusion from the base. Then, the leaves were joined using a boolean union, followed by the union between the leaves and the base.

Finally, Bryan Cera's 3D model template for a screw was imported into the file and used to create the two holes where the screws can be attached to fix the base to the wall. 

Final 3D Model 

Here are images of the final 3D model of the Flower and Leaf Coat Hook. Due to the many curves involved in the design, support material will be needed to help print and maintain these curves. Thankfully, the leaves do not extend far off the base, so excess support material from the base should not be needed. 

Please see the following video demonstrating the printing simulation of the coat hook. 

Reflections

For future projects, I would consider sketching on paper how the structure can be created by breaking it down into smaller sections and then simplifying them into basic geometric shapes. As shown above, this process was helpful during this design process to start thinking of different ways to carve or build complex structures. 

In the future, it might be worth exploring techniques for creating or orienting curved structures that can help minimize or eliminate the need for support material further than what was achieved in this model. 

Now that I have some basic design templates created for flower petals and leaves, I can make more complex flower structures in future projects as well. 

Final Product

Comments: The leaves were removed in the final design as they might have been too thin without proper support. However, after speaking with the professor, I learned that keeping the leaves for aesthetics instead of functionality would have been nice, as it balances out with the flower in the middle. Also, the flower bud could have been made a lot bigger than the one I resized in the final product to support bigger items of clothing.