Wooo! Week one of my One Design Per Week project is a success! I actually ended up with two sort of different versions of the Fibonacci cutting board. I’ll be putting them up on my Etsy store in the next day or two.
I’ve got a couple of ideas cooking for the next design in the series, so check back tomorrow to find out what’s coming up!
Since the beginning of 2010, I have been officially self-employed! Hooray for an enjoyable work life combined with the excitement of a highly tenuous financial situation! So since the beginning of the year, I’ve been thinking about ways to get this thing rolling, and have decided from now on, I’ll create a new design every week, and post the results here (and of course on my Etsy site ). So to kick off this new year of excitement, I present the Fibonacci Cutting Board!
…or at least a sloppy pencil drawing of it. I was working on a batch of Space Invader boards when I started thinking about the Fibonacci sequence (sounds familiar, right…how many times has this happened to you), and thought it might make a pretty sweet (or at least pretty geeky) cutting board. I sketched out a quick rough draft on my workbench, and while the final design may end up a little different, I’m pretty happy with the potential of the idea.
For those unfamiliar with the Fibonacci sequence, here is the Wikipedia entry about it. Basically, it’s a series of numbers beginning 0,1,1,2,3,5,8… where the next number in the sequence is found by adding the two previous numbers together. Math being one of my weaker flavors of geek, this is about the extent of my knowledge on the subject, but it’s sufficient for my purposes. Keep an eye out for a finished version of this board in the next week or two, and check back once in a while to see what else my one-design-per-week project brings about.
More to come.
Last minute update here from 1337mogirlf, 1337motif’s (you guessed it) girlfriend. Mr. Motif says:
“Being the super-responsible person that I am, I want to let everyone know that just six and a half hours from the time of this posting, I will be making my first-ever LIVE appearance at an alternative arts festival, ORANJE, in Indianapolis. Check out their website for more info!”
In Cameron’s defense, he’s been working his fingers to the bone to get stuff ready to show. So tonight from 8pm-2am, if you’re in the Indianapolis area, check it out! In addition to the Space Invader cutting boards he’s made so popular at ThinkGeek, and the TriForce boards & Space Invader coasters, necklaces, & keychains he’s sold on four continents from Etsy, he’ll be making the WORLD PREMIERE of the PacMan cutting boards (red ghost won! I have one, and it’s gorgeous!!) and his very first JEWELRY LINE!!! The stuff in it is absolutely beautiful. He brings out the natural beauty in the wood with simple shapes and gorgeous finishing. Tonight he’ll have necklaces and earrings, and hopefully other items will be joining the line soon. I’ll see if I can get some pictures online for y’all to drool over, just in case you can’t make it tonight.
I’ve been working on these Space Invader coasters off and on for about six months, and in spite of the fact that they made the fingerprint scanner on my laptop essentially useless for a couple months because I rubbed my fingerprints off in the process of making them, they’re totally sweet. I’m selling them in a set of 6, with two of each alien. I thought about including the little tank-gun-thing, but it’s a pretty uninteresting design, and I feel pretty sure that the people at your dinner party that got stuck with those coasters would feel well and truly shafted, so in the interest of avoiding any personal responsibility for interpersonal schisms happening in your group of friends and family, I decided to omit the boring design and stick with the three main aliens for this set. Popular demand could necessitate a change in policy, but for the time being, this is the way it’s going to be. Be sure to check out these and all the other super-sweet stuff I’ve got for sale on my Etsy store, and if I’m out of Space Invader cutting boards, don’t forget that the good people at ThinkGeek.com usually have some in stock. More pictures of the coasters after the cut!
So it turns out when you spend 40+ hours just making the parts you will need to make a full Space Invaders cutting board as pictured in the previous post, you have essentially priced yourself out of the market before you have even thought about assembling the final board. So here I am with 9 “logs” of space invaders aliens, (you know that fancy sushi that has pretty designs in it…or maybe those sugar cookies you can buy in a tube with hearts or stars or something in the middle…that’s what I mean by logs), and nobody that wants to spend $500 on a cutting board (seriously…I thought you guys were my friends). So what did I do?
Introducing 1337motif’s first foray into the exciting world of handmade jewelry! Woot!
That’s right, necklaces. I am thinking about also making key chains, hair clips, and whatever else I can think of. I think they turned out really great. I gave a set to my lady-friend for her birthday, and I think they look even better on her than they do sitting on my desk. I’ll be putting some of these up on my Etsy store, so if you want to be cool like my girlfriend (and who can blame you), check it out.
In other news, I am working on a set of Space Invaders coasters as well (I know I should move on to a new game, but these aliens lend themselves so well to pixel-art…stay tuned for Mario themed swag in the not-too-distant future). Possible other big news very soon, but I don’t want to talk about it until it’s for sure (mysterious, no?).
That’s right folks, the Triforce cutting board is finished, and I’ve got to say, it is sweet. Check out these pics, and while you do, keep in mind that if you want to have the power, wisdom and courage of the Golden Power at your fingertips during your kitchen-adventures, I’d be happy to help make that dream a reality. E-mail me at cameron at 1337motif.com or check out my Etsy store.
And here’s one with a chef’s knife for scale (the board is about 12 x 17 x 1 1/2).
I have really enjoyed making these, and have already started on my next project, which will be a full layout of the Space Invaders arcade game (partial plans below…I’m still figuring out the right sizes for the barriers). As usual, I would be willing to make one of these for anyone that wants one, but they should be aware that I’ll probably have to charge significantly more for this one than previous designs because of the time it will take to make them. I’ll post a picture and more specifics when I finish the first one.
I have also thought of a lot of other ideas for possible video-game themed pixel-art cutting boards (Pac-Man, the ghosts /cherries/whatever else from Pac-Man, Mario, mushrooms/flowers/the leaf from Mario, etc.), as well as Space Invaders coasters and Donkey Kong bookshelves, and the only thing it would take for me to actually make one is for someone to be willing to pre-order so I don’t end up with half a dozen super sweet cutting boards and no money for rent (I’m not sure that my landlady would be too stoked about getting paid in old-school video game housewares).
I am almost done with the first set of 5 triforce cutting boards, and I have to say, they are looking pretty sweet. They are taking quite a bit longer than I expected them to, but I am still pretty stoked about them. Here’s a picture of them about an hour before I stopped working on them today (plus a glimpse at part of our workshop…exciting, no?).
These are going to be totally awesome when they are done, and I am jealous of those of you that get the first several copies (I’m sure I’ll make one for myself eventually, but I’ve got some other sweet ideas, and seriously, how many cutting boards does one man need). As usual, interested parties should contact me at cameron at 1337motif dot com.
I just recently finished my Space Invaders cutting boards, and I have to say, they turned out awesome. I don’t have my digital camera with me right now, so I can’t post a picture just yet, but they are seriously sweet (and I made an extra one to sell, so let me know if anyone’s interested). So now that I have finished that project, I am about to start on the next thing, which is aTriforce cutting board. So here are my current plans:
So I have one question for all the Zelda geeks out there (and anyone else that might have an opinion). In the original Legend of Zelda game, thetriforce is a right triangle (as in a 45,45,90 triangle) made up of four smaller right triangles (or I guess technically three smaller right triangles and one right-triangular void). In every other Zelda game, comic, bad cartoon, t-shirt, tattoo, etc. that I have ever seen, the triforce is an equilateral triangle. So the obvious question is, which one do I use? My natural inclination is to go with the equilateral triangles, because that is by far the most common version, but I could see an argument for the original as well. Either way, it’s gonna be rad to the max for sure, and I’ll probably make an extra one of those, too, so speak up if it turns out that this is the one thing that you feel has been missing from your life.
My sister and her boyfriend got me these sweet wall decals for Christmas (from thinkgeek.com), and I have only just finished putting them up after a month of vetting their positions with my friends.
I think that they are awesome, and that they go especially well with my Tetris bookshelves.
My roommate and I are pretty in to this whole 8-bit aesthetic (in our last apartment, he spent 3 months painting his room like the Bubble Man level from Mega Man 2…sadly, that had to be painted over during the move). I have a couple of other ideas on how to continue with this motif (a…leet motif if you will), including plans to make a really nice walnut and hard maple Space Invaders end-grain cutting board (12.5″ X 18.75″). Here’s a rendering I did using Google’s SketchUp (free CAD software) to get an idea of how it will look.
There’s something really appealing to me about geeking out as much of my domestic stuff as possible as I “grow up”. And now, in the interest of crass commercialism and self-promotion, I am going to make at least one extra of these cutting boards, and if anyone would like to join me in reliving their youth through video-game-themed kitchen accessories (or bookshelves), we can talk deal. I am also trying to figure out if it would be possible to make a triforce cutting board, so if anyone wants to fund my endeavors by buying one, that would be sweet.