Mourning Glory
A game and artwork in the form of an ornate dodecahedron that unfolds into a custom game board.
Blood, Sweat, and Tears
The prompt for this project was simple: create an “exhedron”, as my instructor Rod lovingly called it—an art object, or sculpture, that was also a board game.
How Was it Made?
⅛ inch basswood sheets
Bookbinding tape & fabric tape
A+B magnet strips
Wood glue & super glue
Wood stain
Freshwater pearls & glass beads
Rhinestones
Laser cutter
Wood file
Tweezers
Sandpaper
Clamps (to hold the pieces in place while the glue dries)
Adobe Illustrator
First Things First
At first, I had to ask myself: what did I want to create? What was I willing to pour my blood and sweat into making?
2. I wanted the exhedron to be shaped like a 12-sided polyhedron (also known as a dodecahedron, or a d12 if you play D&D).
2. I wanted it to be gorgeous, fantasy-themed, and visually inspired by the morning glory, my favorite flower, which coincidentally had five petals for that sweet, sweet radial symmetry.
Starting with sketches, I began to model out the size of the finished product, design the outer lattice, and focus on the fabrication first.
The Miracle of Feet
I came up with the idea of the raised, leaf-like decorative embellishments—what I like to call the “feet”. Not only would they add dimensionality to the outer face, they would also lift the outer faces of the d12 off the table when laid flat, protecting the highly intricate (and delicate!) lattice from dirt and damage. Beautiful and functional.
All alongside this, I was taking inspiration from board games like El Juego del Poder and El Grande to create and playtest my own custom game, such as movement mechanics and how I could make the pentagon shapes work.
Conceptual Refinement
The final board game is a representation of two countries who are competing for power. Power is represented by placing game pieces in each country’s five quadrants: military, finance, media, religion, and politics.
To create the look and feel of luxury (for you are playing a ruler!), the game pieces are freshwater pearls and glass beads, while the wood is stained a dark walnut color.
By far the greatest challenge I faced during this project was how to create hinges for each face that would stay together and lay flat as needed.
In the end, after receiving advice from my super smart instructor, I decided to split the d12 into two halves that would, to summarize, be joined by fabric tape, while each half would connect using magnet strips.
In Conclusion
I poured my blood, sweat, and tears into this project.
And it was all worth it.