Here is a fun project I did for Render Weekly's S3:W2 "Earbud" theme. The main objective of the project was simply to demonstrate your rendering skills, but it's always fun to show some thought process to give a context. 

The project was featured on their Instagram's gallery here. 

As a CMF designer, I wanted to take this opportunity to experiment with knurling pattern and radial brush finish. The knurling pattern as the ones normally found on technical devices and tools such as mechanical pencil has always been intriguing for me. It's both functional and emotional, it implies precision and accuracy.

The radial brush, in this case, resembles the patterns on a classic vinyl record. Which is a perfect finish for an audio device like this. 

I started this project during my summer vacation. This is my very first brainstorming and ideation that was done completely digital. Usually I always start with pen and paper, but since I did this on a 18-hours flight during my trip back to my hometown, so I had to push myself to go full-digital. 

I wanted to use a form-factor that is simple and unobtrusive. Something that people won't immediately notice what it actually is when they see it on your work desk. 

I use Rhino to create the 3D models. As for the knurling, I use Grasshopper to generate the patterns. Initially I tried to extrude the patterns on the 3D model directly, but it was consuming too much of my computer's memory. I then decided to convert the patterns into 2D and use it as displacement maps in Keyshot. 

Here is a CMF study as we - CMF designers - would do on an actual project. I investigated several colour and finish options on the earbud's elements, with and without knurling, two-tone anodize, etc.