CRAFT TRANSLATION AND MARKET VERIFICATION OF THE CHU PHOENIX IN ART TOY

บทคัดย่อ

The Chu Phoenix is one of the most recognizable spiritual symbols of Chu culture. Its imagery embodies the Chu people's cultural imagination of the phoenix, life, ascension, guardianship, and rebirth. This paper takes the Chu Phoenix art toy prototype as the research object and discusses how a traditional Chu cultural image can be transformed into contemporary character design, 3D-printed prototyping, lacquer-based craft expression, packaging communication, exhibition presentation, and audience evaluation.

Based on the Tiger-Base Bird-Stand Drum as the cultural prototype, the study extracts the symbolic structure of "phoenix above the tiger" and translates it into a contemporary art toy form composed of a female figure, a phoenix-inspired cloak, and a crouching tiger base. In response to the tension between rapid digital prototyping and the material authenticity of traditional lacquer craft, three-view drawings, digital modeling, model disassembly, STL export, 3D printing, and lacquer finishing were used to complete and verify the physical prototype. Traditional lacquer techniques were applied to strengthen material expression and cultural memory. The exhibition-based questionnaire evaluation (N = 168) further indicated strong youth-oriented communication potential. The findings suggest that the Chu Phoenix Series offers an operational model for translating Chu heritage into youth-oriented cultural products through cultural structure translation, digital prototyping, lacquer-based surface language, and art toy communication mechanisms.