PAC-MAN & Blinky Pillow

This last Christmas my family decided to do Secret Santa. Out of all of the gifts bestowed upon other folks, I think I got one of the best ones and thought it appropriate to share. My cousin pulled my name from the hat and decided to make me this awesome PAC-MAN themed pillow.

That's how I know that she thinks I'm a pretty cool cousin: Blinky is actually white fleece, but the blood from her sewing mistakes made it that deep red.

Thanks, Jessica!

Lego Dice Tower

As most of you know, I've been playing a good amount of Warmachine lately. The miniatures game takes place on a 4'x4' board and involves much dice rolling. What I've come to discover to this date is that I'm always looking for a place to roll my dice so as to not disturb any of the pieces (miniatures, terrain, tokens, etc.). I often also find myself rolling dice off the table. That's why I decided to make a dice tower.

Now, dice towers aren't new and there are plenty of companies that make their own version of the dice tower. I, however, didn't want to actually wait to use one, so I decided to make one out of Legos.

What's a Dice Tower Do?
It essentially is a vertical shaft with protrusions inside so when you toss dice down the shaft they hit the protrusions, rotate, spin and pop out on a random side. Because of the fenced area at the end, you're not scrambling to make sure dice don't disturb other pieces in the game nor are you worried about them falling off the table. My tower has two protrusions and a series of steps at the bottom. See the scientific diagram below.

It's not the prettiest thing nor is it in anyway uniform, but it works pretty well. I'm excited to try it out today to finish up my current Warmachine game at lunch.

Purchase: Dice Towers on amazon.com

My Mini-Arcade: Almost done.

I realize that I never actually put up photos of my miniature arcade cabinet. As a reminder, the cabinet was made by EMDKAY. The internals are essentially an Intel based mini-itx board running Ubuntu. It's got a bunch of Suzo-Happ arcade controls and a cruddy 7" Coby television as a playable screen.

It's been in this state for a while. It's basically missing t-molding. After talking to my buddy Derek, I've gone and finally purchased a 20 foot roll of white t-molding and hope to complete this thing. I'd like to get a bigger screen (the spot is open for 10" corner-to-corner), but I just can't see myself being able to justify the $125+ cost to get a larger screen. Oh well!

You may not know this, but the screen is being held up by a spiral notebook.

The white Sega controller in the corner is connected via USB and actually allows a second player to play on that tiny screen. This reminds me of this one time I played four-player Star Fox 64 on a 9" television. Needless to say it was hard... especially since one person decided to play as a character without a vehicle.

Anime Diorama - Choji from Naruto

I made this little diorama this afternoon. Making and building dioramas based on my favorite scenes from video games, comics, anime and so on is something I'd really like to start dabbling in. I suppose seeing Warhammer miniatures at the mall the nth time and going to life sized dioramas at Disneyland really sparked the interest.

This specific piece wasn't too complicated and there's nothing quite unique about the scene that can make someone go, "Oh, yeah. I totally remember that."

I'm using a Studio Decor display case from Michael's. It's 3.5in x 1.5in x 1.65in and it looks like it's supposed to house toy cars. The dirt is actually a sheet of sand from Woodland Scenics (you should check out the site and be amazed). The rocks and branches came from outside the front door and the little Choji figure is an old zipper pull I had sitting in a bag in the closet.

I'd like to continue to make these three-dimensional dioramas. I'll certainly switch between this kind and the kind that you make out of paper, where you have flat images and scenery with an included axis of depth.

Related Link: Woodland Scenics

Dexter the Cat

Listening to: Nothing.

I recently purchased this craft book, Sock and Glove: Creating Charming Softy Friends from Cast-Off Socks and Gloves, and was inspired to make one of the fun stuffed animals. This one is the cat pattern made from a pair of old socks. He kind of looks like an albino ghost cat. The collar and tie are actually pieces of actual cat clothes we use to terroize Mr. Peterson and sometimes Tonks.

Anyhow, it was a good time. I also realized that my sewing skills have only gotten worse over the years.

Related Link: Sock and Glove: Creating Charming Softy Friends from Cast-Off Socks and Gloves

Trading Card iPhone Holder - Tutorial Coming Soon

Listening to: Kings of Leon - Use Somebody

I was hanging out with my friends The McLellands and had a conversation about reusing the stuff that I love, but really have no "place" for. Specifically, it started with talking about the wallet I made out of old comic pages. I love having these issues, but I just 1) never plan on reading it again, 2) don't see it worth my effort to try and eBay them and 3) I've watched the first season of Hoarders: The Complete Season One. So instead of just tossing it, I wanted to find out a way to reuse the materials for something functional.

Now trading cards don't take up as much space as a stack of comic issues, but they still do take up space. I decided to see if I could fashion something I needed out of them. In turn, I made an iPhone holder out of four trading cards. I'm actually using it right now to listen to Slacker Radio. It's not going to withstand the physical beatings of a child, but it functions properly in an office setting.

Just wanted to note that many of my graphic novels (e.g. Ultimate X-Men, Uncanny X-Men, etc.) have been donated to the local library. I figure if I never plan on reading these things again, I can help the community by letting them read it. Share and share alike, right?

I'll have the tutorial on making this little iPhone holder up soon.

DIY Comic Book Wallet

Flickr Gallery: DIY Comic Book Wallet


Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR. I made some pretty average looking comic book wallets the other night. It essentially requires you to take a two-page spread from a standard comic book, tape it to a one page piece from a standard comic book, do a bunch of folding and sewing. I understand that this descriptive "how to" may be overwhelming, but you can find a much better illustrated guide over at ReadyMade "How to Fold a Wonder Wallet". You will also, if you possess the slightest ability to sew, create something megatons better than what you see here. If anything, I'm just here to show you what you should be doing in your free time.

The reason I made these was because my old wallet stinks at carrying money. Please feel free to review the diagram below.

Instead of inserting the bills from the top, you had to fold them first and insert them towards the spine of the wallet. The issue with this is if the folded money is remotely messy, such as one bill decides to go for a walk and peeks around the corner, it is near impossible to get it into the wallet. It then requires the person storing the money to literally brute force it into the wallet, creating a George Costanza Wallet situation. You may only have two dollars in there, but it looks like you're storing a sandwich.

I wonder how this wallet is going to hold up during this week of warm weather. I predict much moistness.

Related Link: ReadyMade - Fold a Wonder Wallet

RSS Bookmark

Listening to: A tiny fan.





I did a little bit of crafts last night by designing and die cutting a bookmark. It's even got a paperclip-ish design where you can place it over a page to it's more securely in place. I'm thinking about making a handful for APE this year, but with different designs. Maybe a skull, an arcade cabinet, Theodore Roosevelt and so on.

Oh, and the book in the photo is Casual Game Design: Designing Play for the Gamer in ALL of Us. It does a pretty good job at breaking down the main genres you see in the casual game space and what makes them tick by citing essay-like opinion as well as short dives into popular games of that genre.

Related Link: Casual Game Design: Designing Play for the Gamer in ALL of Us

Game and Watch Lightswitch Decor

Getting Ready: For a friend's wedding rehearsal.

Deciding to take a break and work on some crafts before a wedding rehearsal, I decided to do a little wall decor with my Cricut Expression. For those who are not familiar, this is Mr. Game & Watch. I figured his character design would be the best fit for some silhouette wall decor.

This is actually just black scrapbooking paper. If I had the materials, I'd have used black contact paper. It has a relatively low tackiness, which results in good sticking, but does not leave residue (or remove paint) when taken off walls. It's something I'll eventually want to invest in since I have a string of ideas for more things non-comic related to sell at the Alternative Press Expo this year.

What would you like to see?

Related Link: Mr. Game & Watch on Wikipedia

Don Ackbar Draper Figure - WIP Part 2

Listening to: Nothing.

Here is part two of my Don Ackbar Draper project. As you can see, I'm getting quite close to finishing. I still have the gun to finish (I need to find my Gun Metal paint) as well as adding some finishing details/shading on the shoes.

Here is what the figure looked like after I sprayed it with some primer. When everything is a uniform color, it gives the illusion that it was always supposed to be this way. It also reminds me of those maquettes that animation studios make as reference pieces for their films.

Here is the start of the skin painting for the figure. I did most of this during lunch.

Here is a bit more progress. I was especially happy with how the shadows and shading turned out for his head. Black is both a blessing and a curse. While it's able to go over practically everything in a single coat, it also means going over black (if you make a mistake) requires multiple coats. Then paint just gets thick and looks all globular.

This is essentially where I ended up last night. I'll have to find the rest of my paints before I can finish it up. It's been a pretty rewarding experience thus far.

Related Link: Don Ackbar Draper Figure - WIP Part 1