How LAWA Turned Particle’s Elephant Chair Into a Custom Sculptural Candle

What happens when a piece of furniture made from recycled materials is reimagined in wax?

For a project commissioned by AZUR in connection with LA Design Week, LAWA was asked to translate Particle’s Elephant Chair into a custom sculptural candle. Rather than creating a candle loosely inspired by the chair, the goal was to preserve the recognizable character of the original furniture design at an entirely different scale and in an entirely different material.

The project brought together three different parts of the design process: Particle’s original furniture form, AZUR’s direction for the project, and LAWA’s candle development and production expertise.

What looked like a small chair-shaped candle ultimately required 3D development, a specially engineered two-part silicone mold, custom color development, hand-applied finishing and even 3D-printed tools created specifically for the surface treatment.

The Brief: Turn Particle’s Elephant Chair Into a Candle

Particle approaches furniture through material transformation, using post-consumer and post-industrial waste to create design objects with bold forms and distinctive surfaces. For this project, the Elephant Chair became the starting point for a completely different kind of material translation: from furniture into wax.

AZUR approached LAWA with two chair designs and asked us to evaluate which would translate most successfully into a sculptural candle. The Elephant Chair became the selected direction.

The candle would be approximately four inches tall and unscented, with the wick emerging from the top-center of the backrest. The goal was for the finished piece to remain immediately recognizable as a miniature interpretation of the original chair rather than simply becoming a generic chair-shaped candle.

Its surface was equally important. The references included an irregular speckled treatment, so recreating the object meant thinking about more than silhouette alone. We needed to translate its proportions, color and visual texture into wax.

That turned a seemingly simple brief into a series of very different development questions.

From Furniture Design to Sculptural Candle

One of the most interesting parts of custom candle development is determining what needs to change when an existing object moves into wax.

A piece of furniture and a candle follow completely different rules. Furniture is designed around structure, materials and the human body. A candle has to accommodate a wick, withstand the mold-making process, release successfully from silicone and maintain enough structural integrity to exist as a freestanding wax object.

At the same time, changing too much would defeat the purpose of the project. The miniature candle still needed to read unmistakably as the Elephant Chair.

That meant looking carefully at the chair’s defining proportions: the substantial seat, rounded corners, backrest and especially the four legs and open spaces underneath the seat.

We developed a 3D master model that translated those characteristics to the smaller candle scale while accounting for how the object would eventually need to be molded and produced.

This is why we treat custom sculptural candle development as product development rather than simply customization. When the form itself is custom, designing the object and figuring out how to manufacture it happen at the same time.

Why the Elephant Chair Required a Two-Part Mold

The legs became one of the most technically important parts of the entire project.

A simpler solid form can often be cast in a conventional silicone mold and released by pulling the finished candle through the mold opening. The Elephant Chair couldn't be approached that way.

From the side, the reason becomes much easier to see. The open space underneath the seat and the geometry created by the front and back legs produce undercuts that prevent the finished wax chair from simply sliding out of a conventional one-piece mold.

Trying to force the finished candle through that type of mold could damage the legs or other parts of the wax structure.

So instead of asking the candle to work with a standard mold, we engineered the mold around the chair.

We created a two-part silicone mold with the separation line running around the seat. One section of the mold formed the upper portion of the chair, including the seat and backrest, while the lower section allowed us to form and release the legs.

The location of that cut line was intentional. It needed to solve the technical problem without creating an unnecessarily distracting seam on the finished candle.

This is one of the parts of custom candle manufacturing that is almost invisible once the final object is photographed. A finished candle may look simple, but the mold behind it can be considerably more complex than the exterior suggests.

From the Master Model to the First Wax Sample

Once the geometry and mold strategy were established, we produced the master model that would become the physical basis for silicone mold development.

For a closer look at this process, how a custom candle is made, from sketch to pour, where we break down the development process from 3D modeling and master creation through mold-making and production.

At this stage, details have to survive several translations: original furniture to digital model, digital model to master, master to silicone, and silicone to wax.

Every translation matters.

A curve that looks substantial on a full-size chair can become visually insignificant at approximately four inches. A narrow opening can become difficult to mold. A detail that looks perfectly clear on screen may behave very differently once reproduced in wax.

After the master was completed, we created the two-part silicone mold and began trial pours. For the first time, we could evaluate the Elephant Chair not as a piece of furniture or a digital model, but as an actual freestanding wax object.

That first successful casting was an important milestone, but it wasn't the end of development. We still had to solve the surface.

Developing the Colors in Wax

Color behaves differently across materials, so we don't treat color matching as simply selecting a dye and moving into production.

A color seen on furniture, on a screen or in a physical reference can shift once it is reproduced in wax. Surface finish, lighting, pigment concentration and the geometry of the object all influence how the final shade appears.

For the Elephant Chair candle, we developed and reviewed multiple color directions before production. The sculptural form gave each color its own character, from stronger blue and green versions to softer sage and dusty rose tones.

We also experimented with the decorative treatment itself, including more playful multicolor applications during development.

Those experiments are useful even when they don't become the final direction. Custom development isn't only about proving what works. It is also about testing enough possibilities to understand why one treatment works better than another.

Recreating the Speckled Finish by Hand

The base color was only half of the surface development.

The reference finish included an irregular arrangement of contrasting speckles in multiple sizes. We didn't want those marks to look digitally printed or mechanically repeated. The pattern needed to feel spontaneous and organic while still remaining visually consistent from candle to candle.

That distinction became important once we started testing.

If every dot appeared in exactly the same location, the finish would lose the randomness that gave the reference its character. But if the application were completely uncontrolled, one candle could look dramatically different from the next.

We needed to create controlled randomness.

We Tested Brushes Until We Found One That Worked

For the smaller and medium-sized speckles, we decided to work with paint and create the pattern through a splatter technique.

The concept was simple. Finding the right tool wasn't.

We tested multiple brushes and quickly learned that the type of bristle completely changed the result. Some brushes produced an extremely fine mist of paint. Others created marks that were too large, too wet or too inconsistent with the reference.

What we needed was a brush stiff enough to release distinct droplets, but not so fine that the surface became covered in tiny spray.

The brush that finally gave us the right result wasn't a specialized candle-making tool or even a traditional artist's brush.

It was a rug brush we found at Home Depot.

The bristles were thick and sturdy, and when loaded with paint and flicked across the surface, they produced the medium-sized scattered droplets we had been trying to achieve.

The application still required control. Distance from the candle, amount of paint, direction and force all influenced the final pattern. But the rug brush gave us a repeatable starting point for creating the smaller field of speckles.

The Larger Speckles Needed a Completely Different Tool

The brush solved one part of the pattern, but not all of it.

The reference also contained larger, more deliberate marks. Trying to create those by simply loading more paint onto the brush made the results too unpredictable. Instead of defined dots, we could end up with oversized splashes or paint running across the wax.

So we developed another solution.

Using our 3D printer, we created a series of small custom stamping tools with different dot sizes and arrangements. We tested multiple configurations rather than producing one repeating pattern.

During finishing, these tools could be dipped into paint and pressed onto the wax surface like stamps.

That gave us much more control over the larger marks: their scale, definition and approximate placement. At the same time, changing the stamp orientation and using different configurations prevented the pattern from becoming obviously repetitive.

The final finish therefore wasn't created with one technique.

• Rug-brush splattering created the field of smaller and medium-sized speckles.
• Custom 3D-printed stamps created the larger, more defined marks.

Neither process looked quite right on its own. Together, they created the balance of spontaneity and control we were looking for.

Consistency Didn't Mean Making Every Candle Identical

Once we found the right techniques, another question emerged: how do you repeat an intentionally random finish across 100 candles?

For this project, consistency couldn't mean putting every white dot in exactly the same location.

What needed to remain consistent was the visual language of the finish: approximate dot sizes, the relationship between small and large marks, overall density and the way the speckles moved across the chair.

The exact arrangement could—and should—change.

The rug brush naturally created variation in the smaller marks, while the 3D-printed tools allowed us to control the larger dots without repeating the exact same composition.

The result was controlled variation. Each candle belonged unmistakably to the same project, but no two surfaces needed to be perfectly identical.

For handmade production, we think that distinction matters. Repeatability doesn't always mean duplication. Sometimes it means creating a process capable of producing the same character again and again while leaving room for the variation that makes the finish interesting.

From One Prototype to 100 Custom Candles

Development and production solve two different problems.

During development, the question is: can we make it?

During production, the question becomes: can we make it repeatedly?

The final project called for 100 Elephant Chair candles. Each piece had to move through the same core stages: casting in the engineered two-part silicone mold, demolding, inspection, finishing and application of the custom speckled surface treatment.

A beautiful prototype isn't enough if the process behind it can't be reproduced across the required quantity. That is why decisions made during development—from the location of the mold separation line to the tools used for the speckles—also had to make sense at production scale.

By the time the project moved into production, what began as a furniture object had become a repeatable candle-making process.

Three Materials, Three Different Ways of Reading the Same Form

One of the things we find particularly interesting about this project is the journey of the object itself.

Particle's work begins with waste materials and transforms them into furniture and design objects. For this collaboration, one of those furniture forms then became the reference for another material translation: from a functional chair into a miniature wax sculpture.

The materials are different, and so are their purposes. The candle isn't intended to imitate the material properties of the original furniture. Instead, it preserves the recognizable form while allowing the object to exist in a completely different context and at a completely different scale.

That is what makes translating an existing design into a custom candle more interesting than simply placing branding on a standard product.

The form already has a story before it reaches us.

Why This Is the Kind of Custom Work We Love

The most interesting custom candle projects rarely begin with the question, “Which candle should we put our logo on?”

They begin with an object.

It might be a piece of furniture, an architectural detail, a product silhouette, a character, a symbol or a completely new shape that exists only as a sketch.

Then our job becomes figuring out how that idea can exist in wax.

For the Elephant Chair, that meant preserving the personality of Particle's original furniture design while solving an entirely new set of manufacturing problems: scale, wick placement, undercuts, mold construction, color, hand finishing and repeatability across 100 pieces.

The final object didn't need an oversized logo to communicate where it came from.

The object itself became the branding.

Custom Candles for Design Events and Brand Activations

Although this project was developed in connection with LA Design Week, the same approach can be applied to many kinds of collaborations.

Existing products, furniture, architectural forms and recognizable brand elements can all become starting points for a custom sculptural candle. For events in particular, this allows the candle to become part of the visual environment rather than functioning only as a promotional item.

It can sit within an installation, tablescape or display during the event and continue as an object guests can take with them afterward.

We explore more possibilities in our guide to custom candles for events, weddings and brand activations.

How LAWA Develops Custom Sculptural Candles

Every project requires a different development path, but a fully custom sculptural candle can involve design adaptation, 3D modeling, feasibility testing, master production, silicone mold development, custom colors, decorative finishes, prototyping, sampling and production.

Some clients come to us with a completed 3D model. Others have an existing physical product, drawing, reference image or simply an idea they want to explore.

You don't need to know how your object should be molded before contacting us. Determining how to translate the idea into wax is part of the development process.

The Elephant Chair is a good example of why that process can become surprisingly inventive. The furniture geometry led to a two-part mold. The surface reference led to brush testing. The limitations of splattering led us to design and 3D print our own finishing tools.

One problem led to the next solution.

Looking for a Custom Candle Manufacturer in Los Angeles?

LAWA develops and produces custom sculptural candles in Los Angeles for brands, designers, events, hospitality projects and corporate gifting.

Our capabilities include sculptural design adaptation, 3D modeling, master production, silicone mold development, custom color development, decorative finishes, scent development when requested, prototyping, sampling and production.

If you have an existing object you want to reinterpret in wax, you don't need to arrive with the manufacturing solution. That's the part we can develop together.

Learn more about custom candle development with LAWA or contact our team with your concept, approximate quantity and desired timeline.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Can an existing piece of furniture be turned into a candle?

Potentially, yes. An existing furniture design can be evaluated and adapted into a sculptural candle, although the form may require technical changes based on scale, wick placement, structural requirements and mold construction.

Why did the Elephant Chair candle require a two-part mold?

The chair's four-leg geometry creates open areas and undercuts underneath the seat. Those features make it difficult to release the finished wax piece from a conventional one-piece mold, so LAWA engineered a two-part silicone mold with the separation line positioned around the seat.

How was the speckled finish created?

The finish combined two hand-applied techniques. A stiff rug brush was used to splatter smaller and medium-sized paint droplets across the wax, while custom 3D-printed stamping tools were developed to apply the larger, more defined marks.

Are all hand-finished custom candles identical?

Not necessarily. For a finish like the Elephant Chair's speckles, exact duplication would make the pattern appear overly mechanical. Instead, the production process maintained consistency in the scale, density and overall character of the marks while allowing individual placement to vary.

Can LAWA create custom colors for sculptural candles?

Yes. Custom color development can be part of the sampling process. Because colors can appear differently in wax than they do on screens or other materials, samples may be developed and reviewed before production.

Can custom candles be produced for design events and brand activations?

Yes. LAWA develops custom candles for design events, brand activations, product launches, corporate gifting and other special projects. Depending on the concept, the candle can be based on an existing object or developed as an entirely new sculptural form.

Where are LAWA custom sculptural candles developed?

LAWA develops and produces its custom sculptural candle projects in Los Angeles, California.