The third of my original creations, the one that took twice the time planned to make. Also the first one to involve a detailed sketch design.

I'm a fan of MagicaCSG as you can see. Apart from the aesthetic expressiveness of renders, its just so easy to sketch simple models with it and check one's ideas.

It is relatively easy to make something eye-pleasing with ceramics. It is not easy though to keep accurate dimensions, because of a shrinking effect.

So, for this model I used a "bottom-up" approach. I started modeling the items it should store, like a tea candle, a lighter, a matchbox and an incense cone, in a 1:1 scale (in the internal program units). Then I multiplied their dimensions by a generous 1.2 coefficient (looking back to the Incense Burner, the shrinkage there was on average 8-10% but sometimes up to 20%). And afterwards I sketched the model parts around these enlarged details. Thus, after the model was finished I automatically had the measures that I could orient on.

^ the bartizan used to store a matchbox. When torn, its matches can be grabbed from the windows and lit on an open side.

^ the turret is a holder for lighters

^ the tower serves as a tea candle dispenser, and a guardhouse is a store for various type of incense

The bartizan and the turret were meant to counter-weight the guardhouse, therefore I made no standee for the whole ensemble. However, in the end it was added in order to give much needed stability to the structure.

The assembly followed the similar route: create the four parts then assembly them together. The first was straightforward, with a rather simple geometry and previous experience.

But the assembly turned out to be surprisingly complicated. See, the studio hours I'm having only once a week, and clay modeling and especially engraving are not fast. And this is why by the time of assembly the parts were partially dry with different moist ratio. Turns out, the moisture balance is quite important for ceramics.

First, it was difficult to cut the parts to be joined, since the clay already formed a fibrous structure and the newly formed edges became rigged. Then the structure turned out to be unstable because of that moisture imbalance. When drying it wanted constantly to fall apart before the stand was added. I got lucky the thing survived the first annealing.

For glazing, four glazes were used. I'm quite happy with the selection, especially the ones for the bricks and the "green grass on a rocky hill" for the stand that really shows the texture. At the same time I've clearly put too much on the bartizan's roof tiles are barely seen. Not a critical bug but something to account for in future.

This model is the first to feature my signature stamp. The size and end design is to be tweaked a little, but I like how it looks. The design for the stamp's mold also was made in MagicaCSG. Think I'll collect them in another post.

But what I like most about this model is that... it works! The candles stack nicely, the matchbox fits. It's very satisfying to keep the incense organized.

Turns out this creative approach has plenty of potential.