Frank Wright Chair

troyhome · 12 Oct 2010, 17:41

Looking through the Historic American Building Survey online I found some plans for this chair from the Robie House, 1909 by Frank Lloyd Wright. I assigned it as a model to build for my SketchUp students, then set about to modeling it myself. I found that the plans, sections, and elevations were at odds with each other so ended up just making my best guess. I rendered it in Thea with no pp at all. I need to use a better wood texture: i'm going to try one of the Thea materials next.

jsteacy · 12 Oct 2010, 17:52

Can you do a render of the whole chair? I'd like to see the whole thing.

Daniel · 12 Oct 2010, 18:18

So, Troy, you model a Robie House chair, but not the house that goes with it? How lazy can one get?! So far looks great (despite the bare setting).

troyhome · 12 Oct 2010, 19:55

@daniel said:

So, Troy, you model a Robie House chair, but not the house that goes with it? How lazy can one get?! So far looks great (despite the bare setting).

who says i haven't?

okay i admit i haven't....

utter laziness has caught up with me.
For now here is the overall view. and the .skp- enjoy

chair done.skp

massimo · 12 Oct 2010, 21:37

Nice model Troy
Here is a quick Thea render...

troyhome · 12 Oct 2010, 21:42

I like the render, Massimo. I used a CRF and white balance that made mine look very warm. It's nice to see the unadulterated colors

massimo · 12 Oct 2010, 21:59

Well, I've changed all the materials.

troyhome · 12 Oct 2010, 23:14

@massimo said:

Well, I've changed all the materials.

are you able to share them? they look great!

troyhome · 13 Oct 2010, 00:30

Here's another overall render

Dave R · 13 Oct 2010, 02:31

Nice looking model and renders. My brother and I were discussing that very chair. He's seen the original which is made of cherry and is apparently very rough with screw heads sticking out all over the place. The backrest would be a difficult thing. 1/2" thick and unsupported over most of its length. It would cup like a soup bowl unless it was quarter sawn but quarter sawn cherry isn't very pretty.

Thanks for link, too.

massimo · 13 Oct 2010, 07:24

@unknownuser said:

are you able to share them?

Sure.
The wood...

massimo · 13 Oct 2010, 07:42

...and the leather.
For the render was used a quite articulated material with scratches made with two different diffuse textures and some layer. Anyway here you have the "base" mat I've made with Pixplant. It's half size in resolution.

jsteacy · 13 Oct 2010, 13:06

Troyhome, thanks for posting the model, it looks great. Especially the render of the whole model

Massimo, the render is awesome and the posting the materials, wow! thank you! Give you give a little insight into your render? I'm learning thea and I'd love to be able to do similar furniture renders like this.

troyhome · 13 Oct 2010, 15:24

Thank you, Massimo, for sharing these!!
here's a little pp i did in a cute program called Toycamera Analogcolor.

troyhome · 13 Oct 2010, 15:48

@dave r said:

Nice looking model and renders. My brother and I were discussing that very chair. He's seen the original which is made of cherry and is apparently very rough with screw heads sticking out all over the place. The backrest would be a difficult thing. 1/2" thick and unsupported over most of its length. It would cup like a soup bowl unless it was quarter sawn but quarter sawn cherry isn't very pretty.

Thanks for link, too.

I have never seen the original- how funny that it is so roughed up. I can't imagine the backrest would hold up to much; FLW was moving from architecture for people in a direction that has since taken many architects to a place where architecture itself is the formal end.
Thanks for looking

notareal · 13 Oct 2010, 17:01

@troyhome said:

Thank you, Massimo, for sharing these!!
here's a little pp i did in a cute program called Toycamera Analogcolor.

Nice model. I like this Toycamera mood. Wonder if it's available for win (did not find it)...

troyhome · 13 Oct 2010, 18:23

See- you model something and it teaches you more than you could have anticipated! Thanks for all the FLW lore and rendering insights

massimo · 13 Oct 2010, 18:34

@unknownuser said:

Give you give a little insight into your render?

Nothing special jsteacy. I've used the screen that comes with Troy's model, just adjusted a bit the chair's position. In this case was used only an HDRI called Dining room of the Ennis-Brown House rotated and tuned a bit in intensity. Rendered with TR1.

P.S. Btw, as you probably know, the Ennis-Brown House is by Frank Lloyd Wright!!!

jsteacy · 15 Oct 2010, 13:05

Massimo, thanks for the insight, as I am an aspiring renderer I wanted to see if I could create a similar image to yours. I hope you don't take it the wrong way. Then I took it a step farther and wanted to create a metallic version of the chair. It doesn't look as metallic as I was hoping but I like it either way. I used the arctic HDRi from that link you posted. Both rendered with Thea.

Troyhome, I agree with you, I didn't even model the chair and I've learned a few things.

massimo · 15 Oct 2010, 15:09

I prefer the first.