This was my initial design I had in mind. Although looking at it again, it does not look realistic. The shape of the cart doesn’t resemble a crown. From my mood boards and research of other crown designs, I wanted to create a crown that combined the modern and historical aesthetic of crowns.
The idea I had for the design of the cart was that the shape, colours and jewels would be traditional and the detailing of the crown would be modern. For the traditional aspect of the crown I researched what jewels of the crowns symbolised and for the modern aspect, I looked at crown/tiara designers.
TRADITIONAL SYMBOLISM
- Crosses pattées – a type of Christain cross that is commonly associated with crowns in Christain countries. Most crowns hold at least four crosses.
- Gems – crowns usually possess semi-precious stones, including amethysts, garnets, peridots, rubies and sapphires. Although the five cardinal gems (diamond, emerald, ruby, sapphire, amethyst) are traditionally considered more valuable than all the other gem.
- Purple – The Imperial State Crown has a purple velvet cap. The colour purple symbolises royalty, nobility, luxury, power, and ambition.
MY DESIGN
I believe this is a better design of my chosen theme, Royalty. The shape very much resembles a crown with the Fleur de Lys symbol right at the top of the cart so that the audience will instead know what my theme is. The base of the cart will have a faux ermine pattern similar to that if Queen Elizabeth and Queen Mary’s Crown. Gemstones such as emeralds, rubies and sapphires will be evenly positioned on both the front and back of the cart.
The inside of the cart is purple, again a reference to the symbolism is holds in regard to royalty and crowns.
At the front of the cart there will be three flowers made out of diamonds, the influence for this was both historical and modern. the diamond because it is considered one of the five cardinal gems and flowers because a majority of the modern crowns I looked at had flowers on them. A tiara from a designer called Arianna Tiaras had this beautifully shaped tiara that had both flowers and stems which really emphasised on the shape and design of the crown. This was interesting to me and I wanted to include that in my design, it will be intended to see how I will translate these ideas into a cart in Maya.
Image of the tiara is below.
Originally I wanted the back of the cart to have a lace-like design, similar to the modern crowns/tiaras. However, that would not have been realistic. Being that the wind from the roller coaster would push the passengers from behind.
I still kept the lace-design inspiration but just made sure that the design was on a solid surface rather than it having gaps how a lace pattern or a modern tiara would usually have. Although on the back the lace-like pattern will be integrated with royal gems, such as rubies, emeralds, diamonds and the Crosses pattées etc.
UPDATE TO DESIGN
Looking at the brief it states that the cart had to be “Designed such that it could be connected to other cars of the same design”. If I were to connect my cart to another, the passengers in the cart behind would not be able to see very well because the cart ahead would be blocking it.
This I because the headboard of the cart is too high, as seen in the side view of my sketch.
To improve on this is I’ll just lower the headboard, hopefully, this will solve the problem and not change the design of the cart too much. I don’t want to change the shape of the cart because that would not help make my cart originally and the theme of the roller coaster would not be seen through the design.
TO DO
- Make final front and back pattern in illustrator – so I can plan where the gems will be placed
- Make base shape in Maya – Watch tutorials
- Look at colour scheme and how to make textures