I recently had someone at the Arizona Bridal Show ask me what inspires my designs. I love designing rings. There are many ways to create or come up with a new design. Personally I go through stages and work with different methods to get ideas or to just jump in and design. I’ll try and explain a few of these stages I go though.

Lately I have not looked for ideas or inspiration and just open up something like sketchbook pro (which is now free to everyone) where I then turn on symmetry and sketch out a pattern. Unfortunately most of my drawings look better as a sketch than turned into 3d. Once in 3d though I can see it and make changes as needed as I develop the idea. This method is fun and my mind can be free. Most patterns sketched in this method just come from my head. There is no other way to put it. My ideas are inspired by more ideas as I just start sketching patterns.

So that leads me to sometimes just opening up my CAD (computer aided design) program and pull out a blank band to just start playing with ideas. This method takes longer at times. I sometimes just take old patterns and change them up and start to put them on the ring. From there things just start happening and I guess each object that I add develops into the next one until its done. This I feel I have lots of freedom to push and pull to my satisfaction. Zbrush is another program that I use to sculpt and am allowed to be free with my ideas.
Another method is to browse the internet. I love just looking at nature patterns. Some ideas come from floral wood carvings. Sculpture and other crafts that have great talented people. Lots of times these large pattern I see inspire me to make something similar, but on a smaller and more simplified way. you can only pack so much detail into such a small thing such as a ring.
Sometimes inspiration comes from just being with family or going out. As I see a pattern on someones clothing or I see a rug with a cool pattern, or a cool pattern in the tree bark. So many ways to come up with ideas. I will usually just try out and play with the ideas that jump out at me. That is called inspiration. I get excited and that is when I start to experiment with those ideas. From there it leads to one of the methods above like sketches or just jumping into CAD.

So there you have it. Those are some ways I design when inspired to create. Here are some rings that I will be adding to my site soon. I just need to photograph them and add them to my site. This does take a while, but then that gives you something to look forward to, right?

Some New Designs I have not fully added to my website yet.