Also, I finally put up a fun little project that I’ve had sitting around for a while. They originally came out of some of my early casting experiments for my thesis work, and I ended up finding them charming in their own right. I present to you: Nubs. Little things, just for fun! Check out more ways to use them at my site, or if you want some of your own, I have sets available at my store for only $5!

Hard white Nubs, as miniature elements.

Thus, I strike against February malaise.

I feel like I’ve been spending an inordinate amount of time reading what other people have to say about things. Which is the point of social media, right, but I’ve turned some mental corner and it’s working against me. I’m simultaneously over- and under-stimulated, clicking through to divers articles, blog posts and photo galleries, only reading the first paragraph, getting alternately jealous, annoyed, saddened and angered by what other people have to say about…whatever.

So! Internet vacation. Not from the whole internet (that would be madness incarnate), but from the most pernicious stew of my current malaise – forums, twitter, tumblr, facebook, &tc. I’m still reading Google+, because the volume is low, I personally know most of the people in my circles, and I like to make my weekly wrestling posts. I’m of course always available via email.

If I come up with anything cool while I’m on vacation this will be where I show off.

Fingers crossed!

I’m playing in two biweekly games with largely-overlapping-but-not-entirely-the-same groups of people, thanks entirely to local indie-games-lover Joe. One wednesday is a gritty urban Burning Wheel game, and then the next is an arboreal Apocalypse World game. I’ve run BW before for a short game, but this is my first experience playing either of these modern classics.

It’s a little early to really analyze either game, but right now I’m struggling in the same way with each of them, so I think the problem is mine. I’m having a lot of trouble coming up with character motivations that involve other characters – like, my characters are pretty cool based on the moment in time that I made them, but whenever the spotlight comes back to me I don’t really have a strong idea of what they’re up too, or why they would be involved with other action that’s going on (in a way that doesn’t feel arbitrary to me).

I imagine I just need to shake out the rust and invest more in the characters, but it’s a weird feeling. I do like playing again, though, and certainly hope it will continue!

At some point, I lost track of my purchases, and a couple different orders all came at once.

18 bottles of wine, original storage solution

This, of course, demanded that I make a wine rack to hold these fine beverages in style. I think I have one more round of revisions to make to be totally happy, but this is the current solution:

Current version of the rack. 18 bottle capacity + internal shelf.

Materials & Process: CNC machined .5″ baltic birch, blue wood stain (face) and Xact-2-Form .5″ cement form material (sides and back). Drawn in Rhino and Illustrator, cut with a custom Shopbot rig at my work. Machining time about 2 hours, plus another hour or so of sanding and finish. Pressure-fit slot construction, no fasteners or glue. Overall dimensions ~ 31″ wide x15.5″ tall x 8.25″ deep.

Full process, detail shots and more info after the jump. All images are click-to-embiggen-able.

Sketches & Digital Design

My initial sketches. I tend to use 2D sketches to set parameters (like size) and visualize the basics, and then move on to 3D sketches to work out actual design details.

Initial sketches, basic form-finding

Testing out the basic physics and visual effect. I did achieve a free-standing cardboard version, just forgot to take a picture.

I moved into Rhino (my 3D software of choice) to sketch out the arrangement and actual size of the holes, and assemble a digital 3D version to make sure all the friction-fit holes would be sized correctly. I then used Adobe Illustrator to lay out the components for cutting and add the decorative graphic elements. Last step was to import the Illustrator files into the software we use at the shop for toolpath programming.

The Illustrator file used to generate toolpaths for cutting the wine rack.

The graphic elements actually took the longest amount of hands-on time, because I was combining some stock elements with my own hand-drawn vine-y bits, and making it all mesh and work harmoniously around the holes took a lot of revision.

Prototyping

My first impulse for the material was to use Xact-2-form, a plywood finished with some kind of extra-slick material to make separating from concrete forms easier. I like the finish and slide-y-ness, and it cuts well, but it does have big gray branding all over it. As a prototype material, though, it’s great (and we have a bunch lying around the shop).

First prototype of the wine rack, in black Xact-2-Form

Detail of the carving for the mark 1 wine rack.

For the prototype, I gave the functionality a 7 (of 10) and the aesthetics a 5. It worked, obviously, but at some point I either mis-measured or mis-extruded something in Rhino, and the whole thing was an inch deeper than I’d intended, which meant some bottles just barely made it from front-to-back. Aesthetically, I over-cut the engraving by about 1/16″, giving it a much stronger and muddier effect than I had intended.

After taking some measurements, I determined that I had to recut the standoffs to bring the depth down by at least 2″ anyway, and I wanted to recut the face. So, on to the Mark 2!

Mark 2 (aka the current version)

The engraving pass being done on the Mark 2 face

For the Mark 2 I went with a sheet of blue-stained Baltic birch that we had lying around from a previous project. It seemed like a less brooding color for our wine, and goes with the Nouveau-style type that I’d chosen better anyhow. And my girlfriend likes it more.

The correctly-engraved type! The typeface is Eccentric Std.

Mark 2, in use!

For the Mark 2, I’d say we’re at Functionality 9, Aesthetics 7. The new depth is much better, and allows the wine neck to protrude out of the opening far enough to be used to lift the bottle out. The slots are not quite right, now that two different materials are being used (even though they’re nominally both .5″ thick, the pegs are a little loose in the slots). The final functional issue is that there isn’t much access to the little shelf that sits behind the nameplate area, making it difficult to use and see (we’re using it to store our shot glasses that we never use anyway).

Aesthetically, the birch is really rough to cut, and I ended up with burn marks in the holes and had to sand the face more than I wanted too, giving it a bit more of a weathered effect than I intended. Finally, there’s one spot where I made a mistake in which toolpath I was running, resulting in a big carved blot in the middle of a vine engraving.

But, overall, it’s pretty neat!

One unintended side effect is that it looks lonely without wine in it, making it even MORE difficult not to buy wine online. But hey, if that’s the worst of my problems that’s not so bad…

So, I think I’m one revision away from the final version, but actually getting around to doing that is pretty far down my priority list, and this is our new kitchen item for the foreseeable future. I’m pretty happy with it! And happy that I (almost) completed a personal project! Huzzah!

Thanks to Ludovic and the team over there for the nice work, I look forward to seeing the book!

If you’ve been thinking about picking up Annalise, carry, The Dance and the Dawn, or Be Ashamed Young Prince for yourself or, perhaps, as a gift for the discerning gamer in your life, now is the time.

In real life, my fabrication gig has proved to be much busier than it was originally envisioned – which is good, because it’s keeping me employed, but it sure was an adjustment getting back into real making after two years off. Also, in a big case of “when it rains, it pours” I had accepted a couple of freelance projects just before starting that job, which meant from mid-July through the beginning of October I was just working all the time. An exhausting adjustment. Real work is different from school work, I remember that now!

Fortunately, October saw things slow down a little on the work front, but it was bookended by travel (a lovely short vacation at the beginning, and a rad friend’s wedding at the end), and I really wanted nothing to do with anything that wasn’t right in front of my face.

And then it was November, oh snap!

Work seems to be settling into a more predictable pattern, for now, and I’m actually doing some low-key personal designing (a wine rack for my kitchen, and maybe some other things), which is refreshing. I’m also noodling about (re: completely overhauling) a big game project that I’ve been working on off and on since before I went to school.

The main thing for me, now, is trying to rediscover the fun in what I like to do. Something about going through the grad school process really seemed to drain the joy out of me – I would be willing to chalk it up to my personal wierdness, but I’ve had this conversation with most of my classmates and everyone seems to have experienced the same thing. I don’t know why this is so, but it kinda really sucks. Something about the pressure of the critical environment combined with the lack of confidence in our own abilities? I dunno.

I’m hoping that just making some small, simple, unambitious things will help me find my way back to the fun. We shall see.

So, here’s some projects that I would like to bring to your attention:

Bears – Yes, it’s my friends band. But, as luck would have it, they’re really good, and I would very much like for them to be able to release a new album! You can check the tunes out at their website, or on Spotify, if you have it. Anyway, consider pitching in a couple bucks for an indie pop band to keep on doing their thing.

The Circus and the Cyclone – I came across this while browsing Kickstarter, and it hits me right in the sweet spot – circus, beautiful illustration, historical narrative, love stories, art prints, and so on. I want it to exist! Check it out!

DIYLILCNC – Attention maker-nerds! This project is something that a couple of folks who used to work in my department at SAIC have been working on forever, and I’m excited that it’s making progressive steps onwards. Basically, they’ve developed a set of opensource plans that enables an individual to build a desktop-sized CNC machine capable of fabricating 3D models for about $700 in material costs. Which is really amazing. I know there’s a number of these kinds of efforts out there, but I have a personal connection to these guys and I think they’re rad, so check it if yer interested in DIY making!

Animal Crime – Ben Lehman has a microgame up, and while it’s already surpassed the funding goal, I want to give a shout-out cuz I heart micro-publishing. It’s about a Marmot Detective, which is about all I know, but then again, what more do you need to know? More money means more art, so it’s not like pledging will hurt any, if you’re interested!

A long overdue digital offering…carry is now available as a 47 page hyperlinked PDF, including printable play aids and character reference cards. I tried to preserve the grittiness of the print layout while adding the digital features, and I’m pretty happy with the result!

For now, it’s available for $7 from my store; it’ll be up at IPR and OneBookShelf sooner rather than later. I’ll also be offering an $18 print+pdf bundle once I have books back in stock, expect to see that at IPR as well.

5 years old and still strong, I think. I’m pretty happy to bring it into the digital age, at the very least!

If you are completely unaware to the things I LOVE in roleplaying games, well tangibly is my deal. Having physical objects that represent ideas or rules causes the game to be on a completely different level.  Tangibly forces the characters to behave differently simply from the physical and visual feedback of having a token.

Because this token is considered currency in games, players will begin to act as if they have real money. Do I invest in this?  Do I hold off and use it at a different juncture?  It’s completely brilliant.

Read the full review here. Thanks Amy!

Oh, and the PDF is now up on IPR, as well.