In early 2016, Johannes Kirsch from the Kivent GmbH approached me, if I could design a modern, stylish table-football figure for him, that at the same time should play really really well. He planned to also create a new high quality table, and so we set out on a quite interesting journey together, that continued in 2021 (see my next post)...

What later became known as "The Guardian" started out in Softimage XSI as a subdivision surface model. The idea was, to go for a very streamlined look, inspired by how cars create interesting shadows and highlights with sharp edges that flow in smooth curves. 

Some early process-renders from back in 2016:

After the basic design was done, the mesh was converted to NURBS and all the more technical details were added in McNeel Rhino. 

Especially the foot-geometry was very detailed and the angles critical to get right, so that the four defining planes allow to hold the ball either in the forward or backward position, shoot it and stop it. Also the sides of the foot needed to be flat, so that the ball can be bounced between the figures on the same rod.

To be able to rest the rod at any angle, without the figures rotating down, there is a metal counterweight in the head (this is why there are holes in the sides of the head, two tiny rods hold the weight while the hot, fluid plastic is injected into the form) and a hole in the foot to reduce it's weight.

After the form was found, over time the name "Guardian" emerged. 

This then also became the name of the new table.

The table initially wasn't designed by me, but the first prototype lacked interest and several details didn't work well, so I had a go at it and was able to round it off quite nicely with a ball-outlet that went around the corner and allowed to get at the ball from both sides (important when training alone), some details on the form, like a cut-out at the bottom to make the table feel a bit more elegant, a coloured band along the edges and a better ball-catcher design. 

In addition, I came up with several designs for high-quality goal-counters, a slightly modified one was later used in the table.

I also designed the above logo from the head of the guardian.

In this (German) YouTube video you can see that initial design in action, presented by multiple German master and initiator of the project, Johannes Kirsch:
(I wasn't involved in the video!)

We used external 3D-printing (i.materialise.com) for some prototypes and also did one print at 33% size in silver as a pendant which came out very nicely:

See the next post for the partner of The Guardian, that I designed in 2021: "The Dragon"