Design Ideas Resin poured table lamp

2D Symmetrical sketching is vitally important and used at all stages of designing. Professional designers and advanced sketchers use this technique all the time as it makes sketching easier.

Equipment you will need:

To complete the following sketching and communication tasks you will need, as a minimum: A3 paper; a sharp pencil (ideally a mechanical pencil with blue lead); black fine line pens (0.3mm & 0.8mm).

Your Task

Sketch out a range of 2D Design Ideas for the Resin Poured Table Lamp, on A3 paper using the A3 template underlay sheet provided for you (optional). The A3 template sheet is just a guide to help you to sketch in 2D and you can also choose not to use it. These sketches should give some quick initial design thoughts for your lamp. You should use your research and inspiration images to help you to come up with shape ideas. You will then use this sketched sheet to transfer your designs into Procreate, or you can create new digital design ideas.

You have previously done some sketching work similar to this when sketching ideas for your projects in the Prep school. This work will further advance on those skills. Click here to understand more about 2D symmetrical sketching.

Design Ideas sheet - example

Step 1 - Setting up

To help you to design your Resin Poured Table Lamp you should start by sketching out a series of rectangles for the Side view (how you see the product when you look at it from the side), with a centre line running vertically down and some horizontal lines across the rectangle. The proportion of the rectangle is approximately 4:5 i.e. 70mm width x 90mm height - this is just a guide! You can use the template sheet provided or sketch the proportions given.

NB ideally please try NOT to use a ruler

Step 2 - quick concepts

Now that you have sketched out the rectangular boxes, with centrelines, you can start by lightly sketching out your first design ideas, using your inspiration boards / posters / images to help you with shapes. You should do this in blue pencil. Your teacher will demonstrate this. You need to carefully think about the following:

You should have a base design
You should have a neck design
You should have a head design
You should have a lantern design (although we will add more designs for the lantern at a later point)
You should consider how you can use the resin and timber combined together
You should use your Inspiration boards / images to help you generate a range of different styles and forms / shapes.

The 3D CAD image below shows a side view of a resin poured table lamp, and the example sketches show design ideas for the lamp from a side view.

Use your inspiration images to help generate ideas for the resin poured table lamp. The two ideas below are inspired by products / objects that I have seen and so my design ideas are based around the 'form' or shape of what is in the image.

The Tesla Cybertruck was the inspiration for this resin poured table lamp sketch. I used the angular form of the truck to generate a similar style of 'blocky' angled base, and then I continued this with an angled neck, head and lantern pieces.

The American Streamline movement was the inspiration for this resin poured table lamp idea. The curved, long shapes and forms are what I find interesting.

For details in the base part of my lamp, I was very interested by the new 6* hotel in Dubai and the 'cut out' at the bottom of the building, which I also find inspiring.

Click on the button below to see some student examples of sketching 2D design ideas for the resin poured table lamp.

Student examples

Example of evidencing the step by step sketching of design ideas on your website.

Video - Initial 2D Sketching of design Ideas

Step 3 - refining ideas

Using black fine line pens (0.3mm thin lines inside & 0.8mm thick lines outside) refine your design ideas, and improve the communication and presentation of your ideas. All outer lines should be thick and some inner details should be thin.

Click here to understand more about Thick & Thin lines.

Before you start to Fine Line you should get your Blue Pencil sheet scanned in by your teacher.

Fine line the centre lines using a thin (0.1, 0.3) fine line pen. This will help you 'balance' and 'proportion' the shape as well as help you when you begin to Render your design.

Notice that the shape lines remain 'sketchy'. The lines do not perfectly meet, yet they are precise. Try to fineline your design work keeping the overall sheet looking sketched.

Students examples of Defining the line using Fine Line pens

Student examples (a different project) of Defining the line through the use of Thick & Thin lines

step 4 - communication

You are now ready to scan in your design ideas sheet and digitally render your designs using Procreate. Your teacher will demonstrate this technique so that you understand how to use markers correctly. You could try to add a wood grain texture to the timber base part of your design ideas (click on the button below). The resin parts can be any colour. The neck, head and lantern can also be any colour of your choosing.

There are many ways to start this work. You could start by aplying a 'timber' colouring to the base parts - see example below. Or you could work on each individual design. Or you could add resin colour first. Or you could render the neck and head. It is up to you!

The image above demonstrates the application of some materials. Think about this when you render your design work with markers.

Second layer ('coat') of marker pen added. Remember that all edges are always dark.

Third and final layer (coat) of marker pen added. Try to ensure that you get a difference of tone for the marker i.e. some lighter colour and some darker, as this makes your work look better.

First layer (coat) of marker pen added for the resin part. Try to ensure that you get a difference of tone for the marker i.le. some lighter colour and some darker, as this makes your work look better, although this is difficult with just the first layer.

Second layer (coat) of marker pen added. Remember that all edges are always dark.

Third and final layer (coat) of marker pen added. Try to ensure that you get a difference of tone for the marker i.le. some lighter colour and some darker, as this makes your work look better.

Resin details can be added later.

First layer of marker added to to the 'head' and 'neck'.

Marker added to all areas, using 3 layers of each colour. Next is to add soft black pencil and white pencil for Shadows and Highlights.

Shadows & Highlights

Adding some soft black shading to the edges of your design work will give your Lamp designs greater depth and more impact. Look at the 3 images below which demonstrate the impact of Shadows, and subsequently, Highlights.

No shadow

The image looks flat as there is no depth.

shadows

The image now has more depth as edges are darker. This creates a 2 1/2D rendering.

shadows & highlights

The image now has highlights where light would catch different sections. This makes it look more real

Shadows

Completed version with Shadows added using a soft black 'dirty' (has a more grainy effect) airbrush and highlights added using a soft white 'clean' (a smoother flow) airbrush.

You are now ready to add Shadows and Highlights to your design ideas for the resin poured table lamp.

Shadows are added using a soft black airbrush. Your teacher will demonstrate this to you. Light will either come from the Top Left or the Top Right of the A3 sheet and so the shadow area will be darker on one side of your rendered idea.

Highlights are added after you have rendered all of your design ideas and added shadows. They are added using a very soft white airbrush and are applied where you think light hits the different parts of your idea. This gives a better sense of realism. Light will either come from the Top Left or the Top Right of the A3 sheet.

Add a Wood Grain effect