Recreating an antique seed pearl piece

The process of creating the base has been surprisingly easy so far :) I started with some very rough sketches of the pieces and traced over them in Inkscape (a free vector drawing program). I'm putting my notes on the technical processes in italics -- you can skip them if you don't want the boring details.

I used as many paths as I needed to get the curves. I just set the path down the center line of the piece and used stroke width to give it the necessary width. Surprisingly the process of converting it for my next step was easy -- after I had my curves right and stroke width scaled properly (so my 3cm piece would come out with 1mm lines) I used Path -> Stroke to Path to convert the stroke into paths in their own right, and Path -> Union to flatten the resulting mess of points. No further tweaking was required.

When I was done tracing in Inkscape I had this:
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All nice and neat, and ready to be imported into Blender.

Blender is my 3D graphics program of choice, mostly because it is free. It's incredibly powerful and famous for a correspondingly steep learning curve :) I know just enough to get by, but to my further surprise the process in Blender wasn't too difficult either.

I used the Adobe Illustrator/PDF/SVG plugin in Blender to import the SVG file Inkscape created. It seems to work better than the standard one in the import menu. Not all SVGs import flawlessly, but this one did. When I imported it I set the smoothness to 3, which will probably vary depending on how many points you have in your SVG and your personal tastes in poly counts.

Once I had it imported and scaled to 3cm I extruded it to a height of 1.5mm.


I decided to add a bit of an indentation to it to help hold the pearls. I think this will save me a lot of frustration :) I've prepared this model for 3D printing, and I will wait to see how it comes out before creating any more 3D models. (Sticking them together with a sprue avoids additional handling fees. Printing costs on this model are $3 USD.)
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I made the indentation by selecting all vertices of one side, subdividing them two or three times, and gradually shrinking the selection and moving it down the Z axis 0.1mm each time until I had an indentation of 0.4mm. This is not the right way to do it. There is a way to do a smoother indentation that I don't quite recall right now :)

After that I duplicated the object and applied a Mirror modifier to it. I set the mirrored object to be the original object, constrained it to the Z axis, and positioned the two pieces about 1 cm away from each other with flat sides in. I added a 2mm cylinder, to be safely within Shapeways' sprue rules, and used the Boolean modifier to glue the three together. It's probably not the ideal way to do it, as the Boolean modifier takes a LOT of time and makes messy meshes, but I was too tired to fiddle around with gluing vertices together.

The last thing I had to do before submitting to Shapeways was fix non-manifold vertices. I had a couple of places to fix, mostly because of my bizarre stairstep indenting. The topic is too big to get into here, but I got myself out of a tight spot (in a place that was a black mass of vertices) by selecting all non-manifold vertices, deselecting everything but the problem spot, and merging those vertices at the center.


This weekend I will order this piece and hope for the best. Prints usually take 1-2 weeks to get here, so I will have to occupy myself with tracing my other sketches. The larger leaf shape will be easy to scale up, but the round flowers will need Special Treatment in Blender to achieve that dual-level look.
 
Oh my gosh, how did I miss this thread? This is utterly fascinating, K.

Again, I'm awed at your patience for such detailed work. Please please please update us as you go along. Psst: You may want to view the work of one of the few world-class artisans (Edera) on Etsy; it's not my taste but I troop off there to be impressed and inspired by the craftmanship. She details her process on her blog too if I'm not wrong:

http://www.etsy.com/shop/EderaJewelry?ref=ss_profile
 
Hooooooly Cow! Is it ok with you to print this out, to learn from later? I'll have to learn a whole new language, and thank you for giving product names and such. This will be a fascinating journey.

PS, guys remember to Look Up! and rate this thread (if you like, no bossiness here)
 
Sure, go ahead :) I'm also planning on offering the pieces for sale on Shapeways when I get something that I know will work. That way, those who are interested can just buy the pieces without having to learn Blender.
 
"non-manifold vertices" -- not something you usually come across in PG! Thanks for the terrific introduction. Now I, too, can't wait to see the finished product! :cool:

Oh yeah - thanks for the photo of the pearls with the coin!
 
I received my Shapeways order on Friday, so here's what I have to work with now:
pearlsandbase.jpg

I'll cut that post off of the white pieces so I have a matching pair to work with. The indentation didn't print nearly as well on the other side, but it's nothing that can't be worked around. My next step will be attaching the pearls to this first piece. I suspect I will need another size between the 2mm and the 3mm...

Printing direction strikes again! The bottom piece looks squashed flat compared to the top, and I suspect it's due to how the model was oriented in the printer. For future models I will probably set it up like a sprue tree, with a base that should hopefully convince the sorting algorithms "this way down". If I'm really good I'll make the base into something useful, too, so I'm not paying for so much waste plastic.

The polishing turned out well, too. Some places are more polished than others, but overall it's a lot smoother than a straight unpolished print.


justpearls.jpg

A shot of just the pearls, by themselves, in ~1mm, ~2mm, and 3mm sizes. The 2mm strand is another nice find from Inger, and the 3mm strand I've had for a bit longer. It's also not nearly that colorful in person -- they're just backlit in this shot.

obligatoryfelineassistant.jpg

And, of course, the obligatory feline assistant, who wasn't entirely sure why she couldn't sit in her window when I was there photographing pearls :)
 
It's so exciting to see your progress on this fantastic progress! And I love that you have a feline assistant, too! I have two who keep tabs on things like strings and strands of pearls. They are actually very helpful for finding dropped beads -- just follow the cat! I used to have a cat who would run off with entire strands of beads, but the ones I have now just like getting a paw in here and there =^.^=
 
Gah. Project. Not progress... (the second time).
 
Yes. Installments are fun. I love the anticipation! I am really impressed, so far. I am such a lowly beader compared to birthing this concept then being able to follow it through!
 
I started adding pearls last night, and... so far so good :)

workspace-start.jpg

That's my workspace -- some size 00 filament silk thread I had, tweezers, my good embroidery scissors, and some twisted beading needles on a velvet pad. Those beading needles are fine, very fine... and bend if you look at them funny.

attempt1.jpg

This was my first attempt at adding the pearls. I strung them on a doubled strand, anchored it at the end, and used the same doubled strand to come back and couch between each pearl along the way. However, I failed to account for the extra space the couching would add, and wound up with a couple pearls too many.

Time for something easier.

6 carat pearl pendant in platinum and diamonds

This time, I kept the pearls strung on the double strand, but started in the same place with a single strand (on a real beading needle, none of this flimsy twisted wire business!) and followed, still couching between (almost) every pearl. This has worked out much better, and means I don't have to estimate how many pearls I need to add for each segment.

The base itself is also working out well. The printed parts are smooth enough to look nice but still rough enough to grip the silk well, and the whole thing is flexible so I don't have to worry about breaking it. There are some rough edges the polishing didn't get to, but those can be smoothed out with a very small file or even my beading needle. It's still very fiddly work :)

Next on the list: see how well the thin stem holds up to the 2mm pearls, and start tracing the designs for the other pieces...
 
This is a fabulous thread! Thank you so much for sharing the process with us! I can not wait to see how it looks completed.

Cheers
Ash
 
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