Ruan Basson Week 5: Hand Glass Sunglasses

Ghosted Image Hand Glass

Bottom Front 3/4 Hand Glass

POV Hand Glass

Bottom Rear 3/4 Hand Glass

Jennifer Lopez in Hand Glass

My inspiration for these sunglasses lie in many places.  The lens shape from none other than Tom Ford.  I like the look of odd sunglasses, so I took inspiration from Chanel and Prada for the shape.  The time period I took design cues from would definitely be the 1960s.  I decided to make them a pair of hands that seem like they are presenting something precious for the wearer to look through.  I enjoyed the designing process, since these sunglasses are not what you typically see walking down the street.

I used several basic modeling techniques to get the final form.  For the lens I simply built off of a circle.  I made the loft curves in the side and top windows and lofted the dome shape.  The frames are an extruded polycurve that I split in half and then mirrored before rejoining to make them symmetrical.  All the edges where either chamfered or filleted.  I then used offset surface with solid selected to finish the one and mirror it to copy it.  The hands are a combination of piped curves and booleaned ellipsoids.  I would draw the curve in side view and then transform them to look like I wanted.  I then piped them and filleted the fingertips.  The ear hooks are also an extruded polycurve.  I then used boolean union to join all the solids.

When I rendered these I chose to go the practical route.  I chose black plastic for the hands because I want them to look almost silhouette-esque.  I chose a stark contrast form the frame color for that sole reason, I wanted contrast to emphasize the look that the hands are "presenting" them for the wearer.  The lens are orange because that color is bright and fits with the 1960s palette.  I added J-Lo as a model to show scale and give a better impression of the final product.