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Mutant Crystals arrived in the mail today from Shapeways!

I drew these mutant crystals in Rhino recently… In addition to exploring more "perfect" and refined geometric shapes like my diamonds, I'm interested in "imperfect" ones like these. They have a more hand-drawn sensibility (even though they were entirely designed in CAD).

I printed out one version comprised of just the structural lines. My friend Michael was just commenting that it looks like some kind of secret military spacecraft, and that he'd like a tchotchke for his desk shaped like it. Maybe I'll make one!

And I printed out a version with some of the facets "shaded" with lines. I made sure the lines were kind of irregular, like someone was drawing them by hand. I love the idea of something "handdrawn" coming out of the 3d printer. My friend Andrew thinks they'd make good Christmas ornaments too. I agree.

One of the "shaded" ones has a loop at the top, so I can try it out as a pendant. The other doesn't; I wanted to see if maybe the chain would look better going through the structure.

I could also see making a necklace out of multiples of these irregular shapes (designing additional ones) and having them joined end to end.

These models are made of shapes that are 1mm thick — they're pretty thin and delicate, for this scale of a model. They flex and bend a some as you hold them. Though the "shading" makes them a bit stronger. I don't know whether I should make them thicker for use as a necklace or not. Guess I'll find out 
how delicate they are by wearing them.