I liked IggiDee's original idea, but I also had a few ideas of my own about a couple of the pieces. Having little to no sculpting talent of my own, I am very grateful for the talent and generosity of the designers whose work I have leveraged here.
With a little "cut and paste" help from 3D Builder and MeshMixer, I made the following adjustments to IggiDee's original set:
- I added a crown to the King Fisher's head, using "Crown Ring Size 10
by MrPlastic"
- I converted the Queen from a swan to a pigeon wearing a feather tiara, using "Two Bird Models by pmoews"
- I created a new pawn piece by remixing the Rook piece and "Parrot Egg
by noahjbright15 ", sitting the rook on the egg in a miniaturized version of "Bird nest for Wingspan (holds eggs) by njeff "
- I remixed the Bishop Bird Bishop into a Cardinal Bishop, using "Cardinal on a branch (smoothed remake) by notazero"
- I added a small crest to the head of the falcon knight piece, to echo the helmet worn by the squirrel knight piece in the "Woodland Squirrel Chess Set" that I remixed and printed to play against these birds.
- I scaled the relative heights of these pieces to my personal taste, by stretching their bases.
- I added a hollow space into the base of each piece, into which I add BB's and Slingshot ammo for weight. The BASE pieces are for capping and sealing those holes.
You may also be interested in my Sectioned Magnetic Chessboard +Box, with Chess Notation Labels and 45mm Interlocking Squares, which I designed to store these pieces.