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splatoon

Reflections on Tableturf

Posted on March 5, 2024 Leave a Comment

This blog post goes through a few of my Tableturf inspired artworks from 2023, ending with a quick timelapse of this painting:

With the launch of Splatoon 3 came a new game mode, Tableturf! I got quite into the idea of Tableturf, even being a part of coordinating an art collab project – Arty Siege – which paid homage to the in-game cards. I did lots of work for that – creating various design elements, having fun data merging artwork in InDesign, thinking about how the physical game would really play out, coordinating artists and creating artwork!

The art that I worked on included assets for the card backgrounds, and I illustrated one of the cards.

These background images were ink paintings traced from game screenshots. After doing a little photography tour in the game I exported the screenshots and used the Find Edges filter in Photoshop. I printed these reference lines to carbon paper and transferred them to watercolour paper.

After scanning the ink paintings, I applied some gradient map adjustments to them to adapt them into the card background.

I chose to illustrate the Splattershot Jr. as my designated card for the project. I’ve drawn the newbie squid before and as a Junior player (I became a Junior main because of having to unlock kits on many, many systems) I just feel a certain connection to the default loadout.

During initial project advertising, I used this artwork. The pose is taken directly from the pose of the original Tableturf card. With this version of the artwork, I mocked up the first version of how the cards would appear, including tweaks to the card UI and creating a 3D view of the card.

My motivations for changing the UI were to make the Arty Siege cards distinct from the in-game works, but also to think about what would make sense for a real card game. The original cards put all their important information at their base, but I wanted to make all the pertinent information visible easily from a fanned out hand of cards. So I moved the grid and special costs to the left side.

I also straightened the alignment of the block grid. The angled grid was cool, and saved a little space, but I felt that when looking down at the game board and determining how to make a move, it was easier to visualise the move you wanted to play by having an aligned grid. Maybe that was just me, it’s not like things in the real world would be completely squared anyway.

Anyhow, relatively late into the project I started feeling a bit insecure about that version of the Junior being my entry into the project. I was surrounded by an incredibly talented pool of artists and felt like I needed to step up to the standards of my peers! I still like my original artwork but I also felt inspired by the work I’d done on the backgrounds to do a piece in ink and use gradient mapping to add colour.

This time, I based the pose on some promotional artwork from Splatoon 2 – I wanted to show off the square ink tank because while the flat ink pack of Splatoon 3 features in some of the cards, many of the other ones seem to take cues from Splatoon 2’s fashion options.

Here’s the final version of the Splattershot Jr. card. Please do check out the Arty Siege website for all of the other works!

One of the things I did at the end of this project was to print out all the cards, which was a lot of fun! I felt like I built a new connection with each of the artists and their artwork in the process of printing, cutting and sleeving the cards.

While wrapping up Arty Siege I had a vague idea of running a promotional Tableturf tournament – maybe something in a casual vein, or with a bit of a team gimmick to allow a mix of player skills among drafted teams. The team angle was influenced by my favourite anime – Chihayafuru – a show that features a competitive karuta game based on the Ogura hyakunin isshu.

Chihayafuru is beautiful, and the way it depicts friendly competition really hits home. And there’s just something so great about the earnest enthusiasm of the players – they’re engaging in a pretty niche hobby so having the opportunity to play is something they’re truly grateful for. Coming from a grassroots Splatoon scene, I feel the parallels between the competition depicted in the show and some of my favourite times being a member of the Australian (and broader) Splatoon community.

I wish competitive video gaming was filled with people as kind and grateful for the opportunity to play with others as the karuta players in Chihayafuru.

— David Michael Kinne (@Mewd462) May 18, 2019
This kinda sums it up!

Although I didn’t end up running a Tableturf tournament, the imagery and the idea for an art piece stuck with me.

As much as I adore Chihayafuru, I’ve never felt brave enough to try to tackle fan art for it. The gorgeous scenes, the sense of movement, the game that I only have the most superficial understanding of… it all felt quite intimidating.

But Splatoon, I feel comfortable in that universe…

(A universe which coincidentally seems to have a version of karuta already!)

However, my painting is not an attempt to retcon that karuta into Tableturf. In my headcanon, the two coexist. I just wanted to borrow the aesthetics of karuta for my Tableturf scene. I was inspired by the glowing sunset scenes of karuta which I associated with the characters practicing in the school clubroom, but also by the tournament games played while wearing kimono.

Before starting this painting I did two “mood studies” – just getting a feel for whether I could tame the contrast of yellows, oranges and purples before I started. Watercolour can be a tricky medium, and it’d be hubris to walk into this kind of endeavour without a plan.

That first image is sort of a Chihayafuru fanart, I guess – the scene is most likely Arata sitting alone with his cards – but that wasn’t the purpose of the sketch. I wanted to get a feel for how I’d depict the trees in the windows, and the light entering the room. The second sketch really sets up the composition that I’d ultimately use for the final piece.

After deciding on that sketch, I made simple 3D version of the scene in Blender.

A digital sketch then filled in the character details

Which was then printed out and transferred to stretched watercolour paper, then painted over the span of a few weeks.

I also wrote a poem to go with this painting. It’s based on poem 77 of the Ogura hyakunin isshu. Here’s one blogger’s translation and writeup about the poem (I chose to highlight this blogger because they also have a post about the Karuta that appears in Splatoon 2!)

The translation included in that post is credited to Joshua Mostow,

Because the current is swift,
even though the rapids,
blocked by a boulder,
are divided, like them, in the end,
we will surely meet, I know

Other translations summarise the scene as

Swift waters parted by the jagged rocks are joined at river's end.	

The overall mood that I get from this poem, having only experienced it through translations, is a mix of urgency and yet steadfast certainty that comes from love. Apparently, the “swift currents” were not in the original poem, and were a later edit, but I think the imagery is certainly much stronger with the idea of rapid waters.

I felt the scenario could be mapped quite closely to the energy and movement of Turf War, and by extension, Tableturf. The rapid currents can be whirls of paint instead, and the boulder standing in the way of the lovers could well be a grey block, created in Tableturf when both players play their cards over the same squares.

I chose to write my poem following the rough syllabic rules of the original poetry, the lines having 5-7-5-7-7 syllables. But I put a western poetic spin on them as well, making use of rhyme throughout.

Our rapid advance,
Blocked by chance or wit wherefore.
Must we halt our dance?

No - surge forth in this turf war!
We'll unite our ink once more.

The rapid advance describes that rush to claim turf, as well as for the rivals/lovers to meet at the middle of the map. “Chance or wit wherefore” refers to how the grey block ended up in their way. Was it coincidence that they played in the same tile, or was it cunning strategising from one of the players? With this obstacle in place, the shape of their relationship (whether it be a rivalry or a romance) is affected.

The ending couplet describes the characters choosing to rise above (or work around) adversity – in-game the boulders would not be passable at all, so they must certainly have some grit! Like the swift waters in the original poem, they’ll be sure to meet again.

I love how this artwork and poem came together. Reflecting upon them I feel all those warm fuzzy feels from all the ways that Splatoon – and more recently Tableturf – have made their impact on me. I’m grateful to have had another great year of art, friends and community and I’m looking forward to more good times in the future.

Posted in: Art Dive, Behind the Art, Digital, Watercolours, WIP | Tagged: arty siege, fan art, splatoon, tableturf, watercolor, watercolour

“Pearl’s Palette” custom keycaps

Posted on November 1, 2023 Leave a Comment

I recently built myself a macropad inspired by the Palette from the upcoming Splatoon 3 Side Order DLC.

Doing so required making some custom keycaps. The tops of the keycaps were cut from 3mm translucent acrylic and the stems were cut from 3mm clear acrylic, which was then sanded slightly to fit into a kailh choc switch.

I’ve attached the files I used to make the keycaps. Note that they’re designed to be aligned off-center from the middle of the switch; you can see from the PCBs above that the LED is placed immediately below the keycap allowing the colour to illuminate directly through.

You could certainly try designing your own board to use a centered keycap though you may need to consider how to lay out the LEDs for even illumination.

The keycaps DXF file comes with black, red and green lines. The black lines are set as a lower power cut, defocused so that the line comes out wider. The red and green lines are normal cut power/speed.

keycapsDownload
stemDownload
Posted in: Lasering | Tagged: downloadable pattern, downloads, keyboard, splatoon

Personalised Splashtag nametags

Posted on October 3, 2022 Leave a Comment

Follow these instructions to make your own splashtag that can be used as a name badge, fridge magnet… or whatever your heart desires!

You can also order a tag from me at this link: https://shop.chenonetta.com/product/personalised-splashtag/

Requirements:

  • Colour laser printer
  • Transparency paper/overhead projector film/acetate sheet
  • Spray adhesive
  • Plastic backing piece – I used 2mm thick acrylic, cut to the size that I wanted the badge to be.
  • Brooch finding

Prepare your splash tag

You can screenshot your splashtag from Splatnet, but the resolution might not be high enough for a nice print. If have issues with the resolution, you can use the resources at https://leanny.github.io/splat3/collectibles.html to recreate the splash tag. The font files for the Splatoon 1 and Splatoon 2 fonts are handy for replicating the text.

After composing the splashtag, mirror the design.

Print it onto the clear film, and cut it out leaving a generous margin (at least 10mm) around the edges.

This design has been printed at 87.5mm wide by 25mm tall.

Assembly

Apply glue to the the side of the sheet that you printed the text on.

Now align the transparency with the plastic backing and press them together. Make sure to only handle the extra margin of the plastic film so that you avoid smearing the glue on the splash tag itself.

Once you are confident that things are stuck well in place, you can trim the margin away from the transparent film. Tilt the blade slightly inwards – try to avoid leaving any overhanging plastic sheet, as this can catch and lead to the film peeling away from the plastic.

It’s done! You can now attach a finding to the back.

Posted in: Behind the Art, Crafts, Lasering | Tagged: splatoon, tutorial

How to make: Squid Lamp

Posted on April 27, 2022 Leave a Comment

PRERELEASE

You’ll notice that these instructions are very sparse on images. At this time I have only completed the text of the guide. Even though the images will be necessary to make sense of these instructions I am providing them now as an incentive for me to return to finish this guide at a later date.

This is a guide to making a USB powered squid lamp, similar to but not exactly like the one pictured below.

If you would like to commission a fully assembled lamp, please email me at ale@chenonetta.com. Current pricing is $150AUD per lamp before shipping.

Components

I have included some basic price guides including shipping fees, but you can likely source some parts for cheaper! Prices are in AUD. Some of the links are affiliate links – using these to order your parts helps support me!

Electronics

  • 5V LED Strip (100IP30) $16
    • Used to illuminate the squid colour. 1 metre will supply almost 4 lamps.
  • 5V LED Strip (30IP30) $7
    • Used to illuminate the eyes. 1 metre will supply almost 4 lamps.
    • You could cut individual LEDs from the 100IP30 strip and space them out instead of buying this separate strip type. Filling the entire eye space with a 100IP30 segment is overkill so I use this more sparse strip as a convenience.
  • ESP2866 controller $5
    • You can use an ESP32 instead If you need a Giteki certified device for use in Japan
  • USB Micro Cable $5

Plastic acrylic sheets

I use sheets with a glossy finish.

  • 2mm Black, approx 370x205mm $10
  • 3mm Frosted, approx 440x225mm $15

Other

  • 1mm white boxboard, 265x38mm
    • An A4 sheet will supply 5 lamps
  • Masking tape
  • Wire for joining LED strip lengths
  • Heatshrink to fit over the LED strips (approx 10-12mm diameter)
  • Glue that can bond plastic to plastic.
    • I usually use SciGrip Weld-On 3, a water-consistency solvent that bonds very quickly, and SciGrip Weld-On 16 which is more viscous. Super glues will probably work fine.

Equipment

You will need access to the following specialised equipment. If you don’t own these yourself look out for your local Makerspace or tool library!

  • Laser engraving machine
  • Oven and/or heat gun
    • You could use your home oven but I prefer to use a dedicated crafting oven.
  • Soldering Iron

Assembly Instructions

Step 1: Cut the acrylic

Peel the protective paper from the back sides of the black and frosted acrylic. Leave the paper on the side that faces upwards while in your laser cutter. The paper will provide protection for the parts while we work on assembly.

Frosted parts file: DXF / SVG (Dimensions: 434×219.9mm)

Black parts file: DXF / SVG (Dimensions: 367.58×201.26 mm)

In these files red lines should be cut, blue and green should be vector engraved (ie, cut but with less power).

Blue lines should be a kiss cut allowing for the front protective paper to be peeled off.
The green line should be a slightly deeper cut to assist bending of the tentacles.

Step 2: Glue the face plates

Peel the areas of the frosted pieces that correspond to black parts.

You should now be able to align the black pieces with the exposed frosted sections and glue them in place.

I apply the Weld-On 3 by dipping an old paintbrush into the glue. I then touch the wet paintbrush to where the two pieces of acrylic meet and the glue is drawn into place via capillary action. This creates a strong bond within a minute.

⚠️ Wear appropriate PPE when working with solvent glues. Nitrile gloves, safety goggles and a respirator are recommended.

Step 3: Bend the side walls

Preheat your oven to 160°C

Peel the protective paper off the rectangular pieces of frosted acrylic. If left on, these pieces would leave sticky residue on the parts as we bend them.

I recommend working on one piece at a time. Place each piece in the oven and let it sit for about 5 minutes. It should be floppy when you pull it out. If the piece forms bubbles it has sat in the oven for too long.

Form the pieces into shape using the black outline of the face plate as a guide. You’ll be using the long piece to form the top head of the squid, the two identical pieces to make the left and right tentacles and the shorter piece with the groove in the middle of it to form the middle tentacles.

If you cannot fit the full length of the piece into the oven at once you can first bend it by heating it with a heat gun or by placing the piece in the oven with the door open so that half of the sheet can be bent.

If you don’t have an oven that you feel comfortable placing your acrylic into you can heat your pieces using a heat gun. You’ll need to work slowly, bending in sections rather than forming the full shape in one go.

⚠️ Wear heat proof gloves when handling the hot acrylic!

It can be difficult to bend the sheets correctly. I have included some files for jigs that can be cut from 3mm MDF.

Jig file: DXF / SVG (Dimensions: 385.28×328.37mm)

To use the two-part jigs, rest the hot piece of acrylic against the bottom piece, then press the top piece into it to create the indentations.

The large jig is designed for the long piece of acrylic to be wrapped around it. Hold the ends in place so that they cool without expanding outwards again.

To speed up cooling of the piece, you can wave the pieces in the air so that cool air passes over them quickly, or blow cool air across them.

Step 4: Cut the socket hole

This guide assumes that you’ll wind the USB cable through a hole in the side of the lamp.

There are alternatives (my current lamp design provides a micro USB socket on the outside) but they’re complicated enough that I won’t go into them in this document.

Options:

  1. Drill/cut a large hole in the side big enough for the whole micro USB cable to fit through
  2. Cut an approx 5mm diameter hole then bisect the piece through the hole

The option you pick will depend on which aesthetic tradeoff you prefer. For 1, the large hole will cause the insides of the lamp to be seen from some angles. 2 will have a visible line across the wall where the piece was split into separate parts.

Step 5: Glue the sides

One of the face plates has a slot in its tentacle. Place it face down (with the black acrylic on the bottom, and the frosted on top).

Glue the walls of the lamp to the edges of this piece.

If you cut the side tentacle in half in the previous step, then remember to feed the USB cable through the hole before gluing the walls in place!

Step 6: Make the eye sheath

The eye sheath holds the two plates of the lamp together without any glue! It also holds the LED strips, allowing for beautiful illumination of the edges of the lamp.

Cut a length of 1mm boxboard to 38x265mm. I recommend cutting the long side against the grain – you want to be able to easily bend the long loop. This video explains how to find the grain of your sheet.

Mark two parallel lines 14mm away from the long edge. This marks a 10mm gap in the middle to align your LED strips to. Flip over the piece and mark lines on the opposite side, too.

Line both long edges of the piece with masking tape. The tape protects the edge of the cardboard and provides friction when inserted into the squid’s face plates.

Bend the cardboard in half, then slowly curl the cardboard in the opposite direction of this bend. You are aiming to make the shape of the eye mask of the squid.

It can help to slot the piece into one of the face plates as you work. There should be about a 3mm gap between the ends of the cardboard.

Join the loop with a piece of masking tape on the top and bottom, leaving a gap to allow the LED strip to pass through.

Step 7: Make the LED strip

When working with addressable LEDs, take note of the arrows denoting the direction of the data line.

Start of strip ➡️➡️➡️➡️ End of strip

Cut a length of 100IP30 strip to 26 LEDs long (26cm) – this piece will be called Segment A from now on

Cut a length of 30IP30 strip to 8 LEDs long (approx 26.6cm) – this piece will be called Segment B

Cut a piece of heatshrink, 1-2cm long

Slide the heatshrink over the start of Segment B, and push it clear of the solder pads. Align Segment A and Segment B, making sure to double check the direction of the data line and that the correct terminals are in contact.

  • The 5V, data and G pads of each segment should meet their corresponding pads on the other segment.
  • The arrows should face in the same direction, with Segment A leading INTO Segment B.

Once you’re happy with the configuration, solder the two strips together. This video provides a good guide on soldering joins between LED strips. If your strip has exposed pads on the bottom side as well you can follow the instructions from further along in the same video to reinforce your join from both sides.

After joining the strips, pull the heatshrink over the join and shrink it there, providing protection for the connection you just made.

Solder power, data and ground wires to the start of Segment A. These should be about 7cm long.

Once happy with your wire joins, you can shrink a 1cm piece of heatshrink over them for protection.

Step 8: Attach the LED strip to the eye sheath

Crease Segment A after the 13th LED by facing the LEDs towards another and pinching the cut line.

Peel the backing off of Segment A and nestle the crease that you just made in the halfway fold of the eye sheath, lining up the strip with the guide lines you drew on earlier. Now stick down the sides of this segment, taking care to stay between the lines as you wrap the strip around the cardboard.

Feed the end of Segment B into the gap in the eye sheath and bend the heatshrink-covered area back over itself. You can now remove the adhesive from the back of Segment B and affix the strip to the inner face of the eye sheath.

Step 9: Prepare the controller

Connect the Wemos D1 mini into your computer using a micro USB cable. Install WLED to the controller at http://install.wled.me/

Desolder the LED on the board – otherwise the blue light may interfere with the appearance of your coloured LEDs.

Desolder the Reset button (optional – depending on how you orient the controller it may be more likely to bump the reset button accidentally).

Solder your wires from the LED strip to the adjacent 5V, G and D4 terminals. Take care to connect the correct leads to the right terminals! The LED strip has the 5V and G lines on opposite sides, while the Wemos has 5V and G next to one another.

If everything has been done correctly – plugging the D1 into power will light up 30 of the LEDs on the strip in an orange colour.

Step 10: WLED settings

Connect to the WLED Access point. Default SSID WLED-AP, password wled1234

At http://4.3.2.1/settings/leds set the LED count to 34.

In the “Segments” part of the WLED UI set up the first segment from LED 0 to 26 as the Squid Colour, and a second segment from 26 to 34 as the eyes.

You can upload my presets at http://4.3.2.1/settings/sec which will configure a number of default colour patterns.

Preset file: JSON

If you have a favourite preset, you can specify it as the startup pattern on the http://4.3.2.1/settings/leds page.

If you’ve connected WLED to your home network, replace the 4.3.2.1 with the IP of the lamp. You can find the IP address by checking the list of devices on your router, or by installing the iOS or Android WLED apps and searching for devices.

Step 11: Enclose the lamp

Slide the Wemos controller into the slot in the frosted acrylic. This slot provides a snug home for it to stay in the lamp and hides a lot of the shadow that would be cast by the controller.

Check that the cardboard eye sheath is smoothly bent and slot it into the body of the squid (the face plate that you’ve attached the walls to).

The other face plate can now be fitted over the eye sheath. You may need to jiggle it somewhat for it to fit snugly. Be patient and feel for how the cardboard fits into its slot. Once it’s in place the black border of the face plate will be flush with the walls.

Optional: Before attaching the face plate, line the walls of the squid with double-sided sticky tape. This provides some additional adhesion to hold your lamp together while still providing the option to reopen the lamp in the future if you need to do maintenance.

Now that lamp is fully assembled you can remove all of the protective paper! It’s done!

Closing Notes

There are a few differences between the lamp in this guide and the lamps I am currently making. Incorporating the below changes are left as an exercise for the reader

  • The power port. My v4 lamp includes a micro USB socket on the side, instead of threading the cable through the side of the lamp. I also take the 5V power from this socket instead of from the 5V pin on the Wemos D1 Mini, allowing me to set a higher current limit in the WLED settings.
  • This guide advises permanent solder connections instead of temporary connectors. I’ve used connectors like the JST XH2.54 (Dupont connectors would also work) to allow me to swap various parts in and out – this can be good for making and testing many lamps at once or for replacing a single module of the lamp if it is damaged.

License

These instructions are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Also if you make a lamp for yourself PLEASE send me photos! Comment on this post, tag me on Twitter @alecatmew or email me!

Posted in: Behind the Art, Electronics, Lasering | Tagged: leds, splatoon, squid lamp, tutorial

Build Log: Splatoon RGB Lights – Part 1

Posted on November 30, 2021 Leave a Comment

It’s been a while since I’ve done a build blog so please indulge the wordiness here.

This is part 1 – covering the creative decisions (both planned and spontaneous) made when assembling this Splatoon-inspired lamp.

Originally tweeted by Alethea Lim (@alecatmew) on November 29, 2021.

Concept

I’ve had this idea bouncing in the back of my head for yeeeears – ever since I saw this line in the depths of Ikalog:

# IkaOutput_Hue: "Cameleon" Phillips Hue Lights.

Phillips Hue? Huh? Like… the smart lights? Does this code push colour updates to smart lights?

    def light_team_color(self, context):
        ...
        team1 = context['game']['team_color_bgr'][0]
        team2 = context['game']['team_color_bgr'][1]
        c1 = self.rgb2xy(team1[2], team1[1], team1[0])
        c2 = self.rgb2xy(team2[2], team2[1], team2[0])
        self.hue_bridge.lights(1, 'state', xy=c1, bri=255, sat=255)
        self.hue_bridge.lights(2, 'state', xy=c2, bri=255, sat=255)

Oh yes, yes it does.

At the time, I was running Splatoon LAN events and I thought to myself…

What if… I made squid-shaped lights to match the player icons that appear at the top of the screen during gameplay?

What if… I also combined it with the uptime tracking code in Ikalog to dynamically change the status of each light based on whether a player was active or splatted?

Then at a LAN, we could have a light stationed in front of each player to emphasise what was happening to them throughout the game!

Then I did nothing with the idea. Every few months I’d longingly watch DIY RGB panel videos on YouTube before getting stuck on deciding how ambitious to make the build and then moving onto something else.

Motivation

When Splatoon 2 came out it set the idea back a bit. Ikalog didn’t receive any updates beyond the Splatoon 2 testfire. In particular, the code to track player uptime in Splatoon 2 needed some creative problem solving; the icons change size based on the game state, making it harder to get a lock on them to determine their correct state. In September last year I did get a version of the tracking working. (I might write a separate blog post about some of this?)

Gamestate graphs generated from Ikalog code, modified for Splatoon 2.
Originally tweeted by @alecatmew on June 30, 2021.

Somewhere in my brain, the Splatoon RGB Light project itched, but it wasn’t strong enough to pull me away from the other projects I was tinkering with at the time. I wasn’t going to be at any LANs for the foreseeable future, so was there any point?

Then, a year later, my dad was working on some lamps of his own – beautiful, intricate wood-carved pieces. I took the opportunity to throw together a nightlight to use with his LEDs.

Originally tweeted by @alecatmew on August 24, 2021.

I literally did the designs for the nightlight on the bus, and had it cut and assembled within an hour of getting home.

It was so simple and effective that I got thinking again about the Splatoon light panels. Even if I didn’t get the gameplay integration working, they were going to look cool on their own!

Lamp Design

Before making 8 (or 16, to include Octolings) light panels, I thought I’d start by making a single freestanding lamp, to test the light transmission and generally get a feel for the components involved.

What is a light box made up of? It’s simply a light source with a diffuser. A little distance between the light source and the diffusing material allows the light to have an even glow.

My original mockups for the lamp was a double-shelled container. The RGB light strip would run around the inner perimeter and then pass into another light-blocked area for the eyes, and the space between the two shells would provide room for electronics to be hidden. I ordered a 1m length of WS2812 lights as the light source.

While I have a laser cutter that allows me to cut pieces to accurate size, this design required curved shapes. I contacted 3D Prototypes And Models and Dan quoted >$100 for the printing. The large perimeters being printed up to 5cm tall resulted in an estimated 14 hour print job.

“Ok,” I thought, “I’ll drop the walls to 4cm. I’m willing to pay for one print, maybe I’ll just make the one lamp and end the project there.”

But then I started mocking up how the lamp would look and it felt… too small. I scaled up the design as far as I could to use the full meter of the LED strip. Well now it’s gonna cost even more to 3D print the shell and might be too large for the 3D printers available (not really, but I was starting to look for an excuse to not spend the money on 3D printing when the end goal was to make a number of these things).

Plus, Dan advised that the honeycomb structure of the 3D print would likely show through any illumination from inside the lamp. It was time to tackle things differently…

Acrylic Bending

I have been wanting to experiment with acrylic bending for a while, but the right opportunity hadn’t presented itself. I hadn’t seriously considered it for this project because it seemed too cumbersome to try to accurately bend the pieces. But then I found this video, where the side walls of acrylic lettering was hand-shaped using a heat gun, and I realised this was pretty similar to what I would be trying to achieve.

I asked to borrow my mum’s heat gun, but while waiting for her to dig it up I also had thoughts about making a DIY acrylic bender, or maybe heating up the acrylic in an oven.

Side Story: Toaster Oven

I had a toaster oven that I’d bought second hand to bake polymer clays in (I bought the oven from an older lady named Alethia who did a double take when I responded to her Gumtree post). But after just a few projects the oven had gone unused. So after many years, when I decided I wanted to use it to bend acrylic, I plugged it in and… it tripped the safety breakers in our house.

Tried again, tripped again.

Ok so the toaster oven is bust. Or is it?

I Googled and… there was the suggestion that maybe moisture had built up in the ceramic heating elements, and this was leading to ground leakage. Suggestions to dry them out? Use a hot air gun (still didn’t have mum’s on hand yet) or run it without RCD protection so that it would self-heat and dry.

I looked at the “No RCD” switch under my stove and decided – yeah nah, I better have someone with a little more expertise take a look. After all, did I really want to trust Dr Google with this diagnosis?

So I ended up at the Adelaide Repair Cafe, hosted by Makerspace Adelaide. The lovely folks there helped me to disassemble the toaster oven, to validate that ground leakage was indeed the problem, and to check for any internal corrosion or damage.

One of them did suggest the moisture issue with the elements – based on his own experience of working in physics labs where the equipment would regularly have these issues after going unused for periods of time. So we ran the toaster oven without ground protection and after about 15 minutes it was good to go.

Repair Cafes are great. A fantastic free service to breathe new life into things to save them from landfill – I was so delighted I volunteered to help at their future monthly events.

With that little Sunday afternoon adventure done, it was time to create the full squid assembly!

Structure

By now I’d been able to experiment with the RGB strip and the front and back plates of the lamp.

The plates are made from frosted and black acrylic. The black outline has been modified slightly from the original Squid design to allow for the lamp to rest on the tentacles without tipping to the side.

When cutting the frosted acrylic, I kiss-cut the outlines of where the black would be glued, so that I could find the right positions to place them. By weeding out only the areas where the black will be glued, it also reduces the risk of the frosted acrylic being damaged or marked during gluing and other construction steps.

By cutting the eye shape out of the middle of the frosted sheet it leaves a gap that can snugly hold a piece of cardboard. This cardboard serves a few different roles. Firstly, it is the mount point for the white LEDs that will illuminate the eye area. It also blocks the light that white light from blending into the rest of the lamp, and vice versa – keeping the coloured lights from bleeding into the eye area.

Because the cardboard is a tight fit, the two two faceplates can be held together by the cardboard only – and without any of the outer frame being added. Even in the final version of the lamp, I leave one faceplate unglued for easy future opening of the lamp.

This first mock-up of the barrier around the eyes is a bit messy, but for the final version I bent the cardboard along the grain so the curves came out nicer. The edges are also covered in tape to help with fitting into the gap in the frosted acrylic.

Originally tweeted by @alecatmew on November 27, 2021.

After recording the above video, I decided that I could also put the coloured lights on outside surface of the cardboard wall. This meant that I no longer needed the shell to hold the light strip, and with the light being directed outwards… why not allow it to also shine through the outer walls?

So my plan of bending 2mm black acrylic – which would be both easier to bend because of its thickness and (maybe) also because its colour would more easily absorb the heat – became a plan to bend 2mm white acrylic. But that didn’t transmit the light to my satisfaction.

The 3mm frosted (same as the front and back panels) became the goal. I decided to bend the acrylic in 4 segments, to avoid sharp corners. One for the ^ of the squid head, one for each of the sides, and a single curved piece on the base of the lamp, avoiding the pointedness of the individual tentacles.

Forming the Plastic

I made jigs to help form the heated acrylic. My first attempts to bend the acrylic over a jig didn’t work out well because the my gloved hands had trouble guiding the acrylic into the right position. So I added walls to the jig to hold the acrylic. I also added a guide to align the top piece into the bottom piece when pressing the halves together.

For the smaller pieces, I placed the bottom piece in the oven together with the acrylic piece to heat together. Annoyingly, this would affect the fit of my MDF pieces – the MDF would change shape in the heat and the joins would go loose. But other than this, the jigs were pretty effective – provided the acrylic was able to get soft enough. (“Soft enough” seemed to roughly correspond with “when the assembly appears to be smoking” but I need to find a better metric because fire and noxious fumes = bad).

The large piece over the squid head was a pain because it was too large to fit in the oven. I heated it from the ends with the oven door open and slowly it was able to bend enough for me to fit the whole thing in. A light etch in the middle of the piece allowed me to align it correctly with the jig.

The pieces aren’t bent perfectly, but they’re good enough. I glued them to one of the faceplates and the basic lamp is done!

Circuitry & Software

My LED controller software is wled – run on a Wemos D1 Mini, an ESP8266 board.

wled’s built-in colour palettes and effects are perfect for this use case, and it has a JSON API that I can use push updates from IkaLog if I ever get that integration going.

I chose a 5V LED light strip so that I could run the D1 on the same power source. The lights use 18W per meter and the plan was to use 1m per squid so I sourced a 5V 4A power supply. I didn’t use any logic shifter or resistor in my circuit… probably should, though.

I forgot the data line on the LED strip is directional when I did my first cut-up-and-resolder – which I could have gotten away with without realising if I’d happened to get it right.

The socket fitting was mounted low and centrally, so that the wires coming off it would not be visible through the frosted acrylic. The hole for the socket was cut after the acrylic was bent, and I cut a clear “washer” to affix it to. The end result is a socket that sits nice and flush with the wall!

Unfortunately, in the process of doing the final wiring and soldering… this happened.

Can you tell what the problem is? When trying to buy a bit more space to move the parts around, I unfastened this nut. Then once everything was reassembled I forgot to screw it back, and with the power plugged in the nut created a short circuit.

I fried most of my LEDs from this mishap. I salvaged a few unused ones and hey the lamp still looks… ok with partial lighting, but that’s the reason why the photos at the top of this post have a dark patch across one side.

In The Next Episode…

Thoughts for future builds:

Maybe I don’t need that extra loop of LEDs for extra brightness, it actually looks passable with only 12 LEDs (apart from the missing corner). Plus the original idea behind using three loops was so that I could provide data from either end – but that’s moot when the data line is directional.

I need to find a way to make the wire connections without needing to permanently solder things down. Manoeuvring in limited space when everything is stuck together is a pain. Even when we took apart the toaster oven, those connectors had slide on terminals… maybe I need to do the same. So spade connectors, LED strip coupling and header pins on the D1…?

To do the full 4v4 team light panel build, I think I’ll move to a 12V LED strip so that I can chain multiple panels off the same power supply. Using 12V LED strips will require extra components to step down the 12V that will power the LEDs to 5V for the the D1, as well as a logic shifter to convert the 3.3V data line to 5V (I’m getting away without a logic shifter for the 5V LED strip but it sounds like one will be needed for a 12V strip.)

Oh gosh if I do want to get that game integration working I should probably work on that code now before any Splatoon 3 footage appears and affects my motivation again…

Posted in: Behind the Art, Electronics, Lasering | Tagged: lamp, leds, splatoon

Splatoon x Mahjong

Posted on August 17, 2020 Leave a Comment

What started as a flippant remark turned into a little project! Thanks to Toad for inspiring this undertaking.

The suits are:
Eggs, featuring golden eggs from Salmon Run. This is a nice, simple substitute for the original “coin” themed suit.
Bamboo, featuring the old-men of Splatoon. While Captain Cuttlefish is represented via only his bamboozler gun, DJ Octavio stands in proudly as the 1-bam. A traditional Chinese set would depict a sparrow perched on a branch; here Octavio holds a stalk of wasabi. A Japanese set would more commonly depict a peacock – I enjoyed working some of the concentric circle details that might normally go into the peacock’s tail into Octavio’s helmet.
Snails, featuring my morphed rendition of a sea snail, doing its best to look like the character 萬 – ‘myriad’. (Toad said it initially struck him as being a boat – I guess as a nautical theme it works, though it doesn’t scream “Splatoon”). The character suit represents currency increments of 10,000 – when I was thinking about high-value stuff in Splatoon, sea snails sprang to mind!

I think these suits give us a nice little tour around some of the main areas of the game.

Super Sea Snail - Inkipedia, the Splatoon wiki
A super sea snail – a source of inspiration for one of the suits

It took a bit of brainstorming to work out the dragon tiles but John suggested tying them into their loose suit associations – the green dragon is most often associated with bamboo because of the green hand, which leaves the red dragon paired with characters and the white dragon to go with balls. Luckily by the time he suggested this I had revised the eggs suit to contain more blue, so the colour association was present when he made the suggestion – though now I want to make them even more blue!

Dragons as they may appear in a traditional mahjong set.

Following the colour patterns, John suggested a Steel Eel could be used to depict the frame of a white dragon. He also suggested using Inklings and Octolings for the remaining two suits – while I took an inkling for the red dragon, I decided to try something different for the green.

With the bamboo suit being inspired by the rivalry between Captain Cuttlefish and DJ Octavio, I preferred the idea of giving a little more limelight to Cuttlefish rather than a generic Octoling. In addition, the Octolings you encounter in Octo Canyon tend to be red, so I didn’t really feel right making them green.

Cuttlegear Logo Black" Poster by arizone | Redbubble
Cuttlegear Logo

I decided to play with the Cuttlegear logo and hint at that while also attempting to mimic the ç™¼ character. The left side of the character is meant to represent one of Captain Cuttlefish’s medals. I’m not totally happy with the current draft but it’ll do for now.

The winds are currently placeholders – I think that my handwriting is a bit ugly. I’d like to think of some thematic stuff to replace them with – so far I’m dwelling on thoughts of locations in Inkopolis Square… or something with the great Zapfish, since it got bumped from being one of the dragons…

Finally it might be fun to include a few extra tiles – perhaps the idols as season/flower tiles? Though I’m not sure how well I’d be able to pull them off with this colour palette.

Posted in: Digital | Tagged: blaugust, dj octavio, mahjong, riichi, salmon run, splatoon

Icons

Posted on August 25, 2019 Leave a Comment

Some squids with food on their heads, in imitation of the Splatoon 2 region mascots used in the European Championships and Japanese Koshien tournaments. The style was surprisingly difficult to emulate.

Here are some rejects. The Kitchener bun was the original inspiration for the whole undertaking, so I’m sad I couldn’t make it recognisable. The Milo Dinosaur was just a hurried little fun thing.

And here are even more rejected drafts.

Posted in: Digital | Tagged: australiana, blaugust, splatoon

Knife and Banana

Posted on August 30, 2018 Leave a Comment

Finally got the sketches done for this team. They won an art prize from a random draw a few months ago! I got the first five done pretty fast but the remaining five have been on ice until now.

I hadn’t planned to fit them all into one image but they almost work… maybe I can fit the team logo in the middle.

Posted in: Digital | Tagged: blaugust, inkling, sketch, splatoon

Spiky Squid

Posted on August 26, 2018 Leave a Comment

I owe a bunch of art to people, and I’ve kinda been putting off doing the art during Blaugust because it feels like each one is going to take more than a day to complete. Time to pull out the sketches and get on top of it!

For some reason, drawing this guy’s hair made me think of Mr. Kiasu, even though there’s no real resemblence. (Why is there no Wikipedia page for Mr. Kiasu?)

Posted in: Uncategorized | Tagged: blaugust, inkling, n-zap, splatoon

Octo

Posted on August 25, 2018 Leave a Comment

I think this is the only Octoling I’ve drawn to date.

Posted in: Digital | Tagged: blaugust, octoling, splatoon
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