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Eidolon Lantern
Laser-cut panels designed digitally | 2012
One standout project during my time at Towson University was creating a design for laser cutting on a piece of paper. To make it more exciting, I decided to construct a lantern and use the laser-cut panels as stencils to create a masked glowing effect.
Inspired by Walt Whitman's poem "Eidolons" from his book Leaves of Grass, I painted a composition in Photoshop featuring a central ghost figure. I designed an oval platform for the figure to rest on and gradually filled the remaining space with natural and abstract floral shapes. The goal was to create a design with as many cutout areas as possible while still keeping the paper connected.
Once the design was painted, it was converted into a vector file in Illustrator. Since the lantern had four sides, I duplicated the file to ensure that the laser cutter would only need to run twice. The vector file was quite detailed and needed the laser cutter to run for quite awhile, needing me to coordinate with the art department at the time. I built the lantern using inexpensive wood, painted it, and added a lamp assembly from a home improvement store. I also cut acrylic panels to size and assembled them.
After the laser cutter finished cutting the panels, I assembled the lantern. To enhance its visual appeal, I chose a red light bulb for display.
Overall, this project allowed me to combine my digital design skills with hands-on craftsmanship to create a unique and visually captivating lantern.
Eidolon Lantern on my nightstand.
The filled in design as it looked after being turned into a vector file.
Here's the linework of the file the way the laser cutter software would see the lines.
Here was a discarded piece of the lasercut paper due to time constraints.
