The final set
Rendered from Onshape
Wood, chosen over a glossy black & gold
A chess set designed by a player, for players. Every piece is built around the two things that matter mid-game, a confident grip and instant clarity, wrapped in the layered, towering forms the pieces naturally take.
Wood, chosen over a glossy black & gold
Clean layers, mostly without curves. The most architectural of the three, and the language the final set draws from.
Layers with tall and short inward curves. Elegant, but it felt lacking without a special base to carry it.
A single tapering curve, like a bowling pin. The simplest read of a piece's towering profile.
Final dimensions were locked down in CAD. The king profile, 9.5 units tall on a 1.875 base, set the proportions the rest of the set was built to.
Every piece carries the recessed vent: grip and identification in one detail
Vent-like recesses run through most of the pieces. In fast, blitz play, sweaty hands slip. The vent lets the skin press in for grip, and doubles as a way to tell pieces apart by feel.
The queen skips the full vent (keeping just one at the top) so she reads as the strongest piece on the board, and is never mistaken for the king.
A layered base keeps every piece steady. No weak point is left exposed. The king's cross can't touch the ground if it topples, and the vents are curved into the body, never proud of it.
Two finishes were rendered and compared, a warm wood and a glossy black & gold. The wood won, and now leads the page.
The set does what it set out to do: ergonomic, clear, stable, durable, and genuinely playable. Given more time I'd push the sketching further; my ideas outran my drawing speed, so some pieces carry less detail than I'd planned. The bishop, in particular, wants a distinguishing feature the way the knight has one.