Samurai Perfume Bottle Design

This product design project was an assignment I did in my hard surface modeling class I took in Fall 2022. For this assignment, we were tasked with designing a bottled product, either a perfume or alcohol bottle, according to the theme chosen by our teacher. We were then to model our design to-scale in Maya, as well as model supporting objects to set up a scene to create an advertisement to show off our final product design. For the assignment topic, our teacher assigned us a samurai-inspired theme.

For my product, I quickly decided that I wanted to incorporate the blood moon into my design. The blood moon, which is a rare result of a total solar eclipse, is prevalent in a lot of Japanese or Japanese-inspired pop culture. In medieval Japan, it was believed that the blood moon was a bad omen; a sign that something terrible was about to happen. The blood moon’s direct relation to the samurai is shrouded, perhaps coming from the blood moon myths that began during the Heian period, close to when the samurai rose to power in Japan. However, the “blood moon samurai” is extremely popular in pop culture today, being seen in video games, TV shows, and more.

Example of the blood moon being used in Japanese pop culture. Image is a screenshot from the video game “Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild”, depicting a “blood moon event” that regularly occurs within the game.

Examples of the “blood moon samurai” trope present in pop culture.“Blood Moon Kennen” and “Blood Moon Yasuo” cosmetic skin splash arts from League of Legends. Their masks are inspired by traditional “oni” masks worn by the samurai, and their armor is inspired by the traditional samurai armor called “yoroi”.

While researching the blood moon, I decided that my best choice of product to create would be a perfume. I was inspired by the types of perfume bottles with the round stoppers at the top of the bottles. I was inspired to incorporate the round stopper into my design, to make it red to symbolize the blood moon.

Example of a perfume bottle with a similar type of spherical stopper that inspired me. Image from Valerie Wade.

I moved on to designing the bottle. I also wanted to incorporate some horns into the design as a way to represent the samurai aspect better, rather than just showing off the blood moon. I chose some metallic gold horns, color-wise to pair well with the blood-red color, as well as to represent the many traditional “kawari kabuto” samurai helmets that typically have golden horns or crests.

While designing, I also wanted some sort of symbol on the front of the bottle. It felt extremely plain, and still did not full scream “blood moon samurai” to me. While researching, I found a commonly-used design for the blood moon in some pop culture, which also looked to be inspired by symbols of lunar and solar eclipses. This inspired the symbol I ultimately decided to put on the front of my bottle, which I think really helped the appearance and to signify the theme of the bottle.

Since the product was meant to be a perfume, I also needed to decide what the product would theoretically smell like. I decided that to best follow the theme, the scent should be a blood orange and yuzu perfume, with notes of hinoki (Japanese cypress) and shiso. I wanted most of the scents to be Japanese inspired and to likely pair well with the scent of blood orange, which felt like I had to include it with the theme of “round red thing compared to blood”. The yuzu, being an extremely popular citrus fruit in Japan that has gained popularity in skincare and perfumes, would pair extremely well with the blood orange. Typically, many blood orange perfumes tend to either go in a musky direction or a fruity direction, and with the samurai theme I felt it would make the most sense to go in a musky direction. Thus, another Japanese-inspired ingredient, hinoki, made the most sense as a woody, rich fragrance that tends to pair well with citrus scents. Finally, shiso would add a more fresh and green notes to pair with the hinoki and the citrus extremely well, as well as being another Japanese-inspired scent.

Traditional “kawari kabuto” samurai helmet on display at the Tokyo Fuji Art Museum.

My idea page for the design of the bottle, accompanied by measurements of the bottle size to be able to model it to-scale in Maya.

After designing my product, I moved into Maya to model it to-scale based on the measurements I decided upon while designing, which were just based on the standard size of a perfume bottle. I also began to model props to accompany the bottle in a scene set up for an advertisement.

I knew I had to include an orange in order to advertise the orange-citrus scent that would be the most prominent in the perfume. When researching other perfume advertisements, most tend to only include one of their most scent-forward ingredients (if any at all) so the consumer would get a basic idea of what kind of scent they are buying. I also chose to include some metallic balloons strewn about the scene to add more for the eye to follow, to add more color with the silver balloons, and to add more "blood moon” symbolism with the red balloons.