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rangerBlog
Dec. 5th, 2007
05:49 pm
Cube is done. 2 different kinds of acrylic overcoat, sanding, etc. Total crafting hours, ~40. Each outer corner is composed of 45 separate elements glued together, and is almost solid.
Almost, it turns out, is the operative term. While the layers of acrylic softened the entire structure enough to throw it around safely (it hurt like hell to do this before the acrylic-- the corners were too 'solid,' now they have give,) while throwing it in a 20' high arc and putting aggressive backspin on it to make it difficult for the other person to catch, it smashed into the floor and split one of its corners. (Due to the spin.)
The cube is now in need of repair. A few layers of spray acrylic should do it. Until then...
(I'm considering spraying the band-aid permanently in place, for it is adorable.)
Favorite play-pattern? Clanging he cube awkwardly on walls. People who haven't played the game give us weird looks though.
Nov. 5th, 2007
08:51 pm - Comfort Cube (WIP)
I'm in the Bachelor of Science Program at my school- essentially getting a business degree from an art school. It's an enlightening experience. One thing I've learned: I have no patience, interest or apparent ability at Graphic Design.
My grotty sores in Typography would be the first clue there. But still, I cheerily soldiered on and took Graphic Design 2. Big Mistake. I disagree with everything that comes out of the teacher's mouth (I'm a web and communications theory guy, she is a print designer-- we have entirely different priorities) and every project we've done this semester starts with 'do a type layout before you design anything.'
(I want to scream.)
Anyway, since I clearly don't have the GD chops to make it through GD2, I've been substituting chops I do have-- craft. You can do a lot with cut up paper if you stink 15 or 16 hours into it. Thus far I've composed CMYK plates by hand, embossed stuff, and created little white-on-white papercraft villages. (All of which turned into posters.)
The results are invariably impressive because you can't fake the effects digitally, they have texture,lighting, etc. Doesn't change the fact I have no discernable GD skill, but it's at least giving me A's on the assignments.
Anyway, having crafed a fair bit recently, I thought I'd try my hand at the papercraft swirling aroudn the internet this week- the Weighted Comfort Cube from Portal.
Shown at right is my work-in-progress. I'm using the recipe that I found on 4chan (I think it originated there...) and decided to go for size-- the cube itself is 5" across, it will be 6" with the nobbies when done. (The size was determined by the largest I could print the 6-square layout-- a 17"x22" piece of paper.)
I've seen a couple tries at putting this together, none of which terribly impressed me-- the detail is hard. I wanted this to be a plaything for the BS community room, so I went for scale and durability.
The central cube is 2 layers of cardboard under the printout, sandwiched with Duo-tac (Sheets of 2-sided sticky.) I reinforced the corners (which will be covered by nobbies) with triangular fasteners-- a necessity because the tabs on the 4-chan formula can't properly be taped shut from the inside. The result is EXTREMELY stable.
The nobbies made me cry. They fall apart. I build them- and they come undone. They're trying to pull in the worst possible configuration- and once you put them on it's impossible to glue them into place (because, again, all the tabs are INSIDE.)
Experiments with some styrofoam lying around showed that creating pillars 'out' from the corners of the cube to 'pull' on the inside surface of the nobbies helped with stability- but they still tended to fall apart and sag.
Ultimately, I decided to make the nobbies solid. I'm cutting sheets of chipboard into pentagonal (the shape of Superman's shield, you can see some pieces stored in the clip in the picture) pieces which start on the inside surface of the nobbie. I then layer them 13 deep- with the 13th 'outer' layer being as wide as the base of the nobbie. Onto THIS surface, I then securely fasten all the interior tabs-- then glue another sheet OVER them, sandwiching the tabs firmly in place. The nobbie corner is now essentially a solid piece. (I didn't scale the S-shield pieces up as I went, so there's actually a little give on the edges, but that's not important.) Each of the 8 corners will require 39 pieces of Chipboard, over 300 for all 8 corners. But the result is solid piece with a flush surface I will be able to mate with the corner of the cube.
Tomorrow is registration for classes, so I should have the spare time to finish. Yay!
Costs so far:
$12 printing
$7 Duo-tac (the cube has more than a square yard in it already...)
$1 Chipboard
The nobbies show white around the corners where things don't line up perfectly. I plan to take a french grey marker when construction is finished to touch up the white spots. The template should probably have made the white tabs gray and the same texture as the cube to make them mroe forgiving-- but that would probably offend the "if you build it right, no seams will show" purists.
Fuck purity, I plan to throw this at people. By the time it's done it should weigh several pounds.