New possible chess set design

I do realize that the pawns are very tall, and yes, most pawns from the standard Staunton design are only a little taller than half the King.

There are lots of things that I don't follow of the original Staunton design; I was trying to be innovative in this way. (For instance, how many staunton designs do you see of Bishop pieces holding crosses on the back of their shafts? How many do you see where the Rooks are slightly taller than the King? Of course, the latter I didn't render, but it is an option for customization.)

Were you meaning all of these on random pieces in the same set?

BattleChessGN18 wrote:

2) Please be a bit more specific.

(If you're meaning that the Queen needs crenels on her crown and the Rook needs safeguards on its towerhead, they will be there; I simply don't know how to render them in the 3d program.)

Exactly what you said :)

Haha I'm a novice amateur graphics 3d designer; there's still a lot I have to learn as to how to render. ^-^

If anything however, the crenels and safeguards should look like any traditional crenels and safeguards on any traditional Staunton luxury.

My main criticism of this set is it seems to be divided among two worlds of chess design.

It has an abstract look about it which suggests it is meant for playing the game of chess.

However, several design choices indicate it would do this job poorly.  These choices would include.

1. The size.  A 6" chess set on a board with 3.125" squares will never be able to play a serious game.  It's simply too large, and the players are not able to take in the entire board at once with pieces this size.  I have a lot of experience playing on 3" boards and I have had trouble with pieces which were only 4.8".  Additionally, at the size of 6" I feel like Chess pieces take on a comedic aspect.  I would recommend a 4-5" size to be the premium size for this set.

2. The durability of pieces.  The King's Finnial and various aspects of the Knight look ripe for breakage.  If you went ahead with this design I would recommend the King's finnial being detachable and made of metal. 

3. The stability of the pieces.  Being so tall and narrow they will be tippy.  Even in the revised widened design seen so far

4. Ease of cleaning.  It seems to me these sets have many grooves which will accumulate dirt and require the player to use a toothpick or some other small implement to clean it out. 

From my personal preference: I do not like how each piece seems to be on a pedestal.  I like for the widest part of a chess piece to be the base of the piece.  As well it looks as if the Bishops have had a rubber stopper placed over their ends, as if they were too sharp and required a safety measure to protect the players hands.  The Bishop's crosses may seem a bit puzzling to international players where this piece goes by names not associated with the church.

The other world of chess is sets which are made only for looking at.  And these sets are generally made up of figurines.  I suppose there is room in the market for an abstract chess set which is about aesthetics and visuals first, and play second, but if I were designing a chess set I'd hope to see people play some good games with it.

Will Barbara Eden endorse the pawn design?

1 - Please request to House of Staunton, then, to stop having their manufacturer produce 6" sets. ^-^

Lighthearted sarcasm aside, the set also comes in two other smaller sizes. (It was mentioned in my response to RCMacMillan, the first responder in this thread.)

2 - The horn and King crown pieces are attachable (you can take them on and off), and the real product would likely be thicker and shorter than what is displayed; also, there are available different designs for the King's crown, many of which are more robust than the skinny cross. (The cross is simply the easiest one to render for 3d picture display at this time. =D)

3 - The issue of narrowness has actually been resolved by thickening the lower portion of the shaft by lessening the transitional curvature connecting the base to the upper portion of the shaft. But, as it turns out, my expert carver, who's company has existed for more than 60 reputable years, told me that there is actually no problem with structural support of the original narrow design, since he has made many playable sets with this design. (On a tangent, back in early 2000's, I bought a 6" House of Staunton with the King's base diameter being barely 2.375(!!). I've enjoyed this set with very little to no trouble for more than a decade now.)

4 - I think at least some bits of stubborn dust accumulation on any set is inevitable. As far as I'm concerned, however, dust does not really accumulate in the grooves of my 6" Camelot Luxury Artisan Set, a set which has many designs similar to the ones here.

Then again, if you're always playing with the pieces, or they're being stored away in a chessbox (the one for this set is in brainstorm stage right now), should one need be all that concerned about cleaning it?

5 - Again, if this has to do with structural support and the likelihood of the pieces being knocked over, it's not a problem to worry about. Logically, you make sense, and I inquired exactly this of my carver: wheather or not such a design would work, innovative as I was trying to be. He said there should be very minimum problem with a base design like this. Having said that, I'd like to keep this feature, since I came up with it my very own and I'm one to like to celebrate my creativity. (No house of Staunton design has, to my knowledge, used this feature.)

6 - Ah, finally someone mentions the featuristic cross on the Bishops! It's yet another of my innovations that I hope will set my Chess pieces apart from other brands.

I suppose my one defense is that the cross has many meanings and that it doesn't have to denote a religious one; as a swaztika doesn't have to mean concentration camps and hatred against Jewish people; (The Nazi's merely decided to use it as their own symbol, and due to us history writers having made the Nazis famous for their infamy, hatred of Jewish people has gained a monopoly in defining the swatztika; even if it has existed before then and has had other meanings irrelevant.) valid as your point is.

If anything, however, international people should know what a "Bishop" is and why a cross must be there.

Over all, one great thing about the marketing of this set, as is for all sets in my brand, is that customers get to decide on customizable features. I brought many of these up in one of the posts, but to reiterate them here, some of them include Knights having or not having the horn, the King and Queen having various options for crowns, and pieces in the set being monochromatic or bi-chromatic. I may want to also add including or excluding the pedastal component and the Bishop's featuristic cross. (per our discussion here)

Stony rooks, furred knights, silken bishops, metallic kings, squishy pawns... that's the sort of thing I had in mind. Almost certainly a silly idea (I have a lot of those!).

I'l like to see such a set. ^-^

Is it a marketable thing for kids?

(images have been edited out - Thank you for your contribution!

3/19/16)

(images have been edited out - Thank you for your contribution!

3/19/16)

I might lacquer the necks and caps of the white pieces (made of European Hornbeam wood) with gold; and those of the black pieces (made of either Genuine Gabon Ebony, African Blackwood or black East Indian Rosewood) with copper-colored lacquer.

Now, if I were to do it with actual Gold and high-quality Copper, that will raise the price of the set to the 1000's(!!!!), and I don't want to do that to my customers. I think cheap lacquer will do the job, since it can simulate Gold decently. =)

Weaponized chess pieces!

Nah, you're not. I think people have done it before in the past.

However, metalwork simply isn't something I'm knowledgeable about, and so I don't see myself trying this in the near future. Although, I could ask my woodworker if he knows. Then again, I think he too is only woodshop and not metalwork.

K, Fburton. I think it was fun the first few times, but now we're getting a bit too off-topic. Can we please focus on the design I have here?

Hello!

I really like the design that you have going here. Maybe something you could do is to do a heavy wood and then do black and gray staining for the two colours and stain it in such a way that you could see the grain too? That would be extremely beautiful on a dark board and look very classy. That would be something you could do on the woodworking front since you don't know how to do metalwork and I think a set like that could easily contest some of the extremely expensive chess sets on the market. =)

These two colours would be beautiful together. =)

Thanks for the compliment, CamAndAlex. And, thanks for the suggestion.

However, my woodworker and I are already settled on the wood species to use.

- European Hornbeam

- African Coralwood (Padauk)

- Genuine Ebony

- East Indian Rosewood

- Cocobolo

- Verawood

- Steamed Swiss Pearwood

- Chatke Viga

- Hornmigo

All of these exotic woods have natural coloration that is very vibrant, from cream white to glaring red to forest green to Black.

Part of the pricing is also determined by the wood type: I want to choose a good quality of wood for people to stare at for hours at a time. While staining could be a nice convenient option, it might drive the price down. (Please correct me if I'm wrong, since I'm not totally sure on that; it was just my business hunch.)

I looked up all of these kinds of wood and don't see any that seem black to me. Which one are you saying would be the black one?

You have a lot of beautiful woods in mind though. The bloodwood is very interesting too.

Natural black wood is hard to find from what I've heard and is expensive. If you were to do a set that were black, buying a slightly cheaper wood with good grain and staining it would logistically benefit you depending on the cost of those natural black woods. It wouldn't drive the price down that much, in my opinion. You should be able to sell it for the same amount, and you would make a larger profit since you used slightly cheaper materials. 

African Blackwood is one natural black wood I know of, but it's pretty pricey. One .75"x.75"x5" piece is $2.95. It at least seems pricey to me. I may be wrong. =P If that's in your price range, however, that wood is extremely beautiful and if you don't want to stain may be a very good option.

I thought I listed African Blackwood; which is a beautiful rosewood. haha

But,t he black wood (not Blackwood) that I was thinking about was Genuine Ebony; also from Africa.

African blackwood is even more expensive and endangered than Ebony. And, it's harder to work because it's more dense, too. So, Ebony will do. ^-^

Ebony and red colored woods as Bloodwood, Jarrah or Padauk (red-orange) will go very nice together. But, Padauk and Hornbeam as a red and white pair would also be nice, I think.

Whoops! Eyes completely skimmed over ebony.

Yes, that is a beautiful wood! I agree with your pairings as well.

You have something really good going here. Good on you! I look forward to seeing it on the market someday. =)

Will you buy it, good folk? =D