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How to Store Your Fantasy Coins

Completed Coin Storage with Screw Top Containers
Coins as I recieved them from Fantasy Coin Inc
Here are the Scifi Fantasy coins I ordered, We need a better way to store them!

Quick project to share with you all today. My friend turned me on to Fantasy Coin Inc. Fantasy Coin Inc makes legit metal coins that you can use as a stand in for those crumby cardboard “coins” that come with your board games. Nothing quite beats the visceral metal “clink” and pushing piles of these puppies around so I HAD to get some.  I decided to get a set of the Sci-Fi Style coins, and a set of the Dwarf coins. These things are absolutely stunning and a real pleasure to handle. For each set I ordered a large amount of bronze coins, a smaller amount of silver coins. and an even smaller amount of gold coins. These can be used to designate different amounts in the game, such as 1, 5 and 10 “units”.

Coin Holder in Tinkercad
Coin Holder in Tinkercad

There’s only one problem however… how to store all these beautiful coins in such a way that’s easy and portable? I decided what the hell, I have a 3D printer so I should just go ahead and use it! I stacked up the coins into piles that made the most sense.. 2 bronze, 2 silver, and one gold. Then after taking all the measurements I used Tinkercad to design the holder.  Once designed it was just a simple export to STL and pulled it into Cura to print!

For the first print I scaled the Z-axis to just about nothing so that I could get a quick, flat print to test out the coin sizes. Nothing feels as good as designing and printing something the first time through and having everything fit up perfectly!  I then drove this project home by printing the coin holder at full scale, and printing my favorite screw top container from Thingaverse to hold the whole thing for easy storage. Seriously I use these screw top containers for pretty much everything, they are great!

If you have similar fantasy coins and could make use of my holder, feel free to grab it from Thingiverse here: Fantasy Sci-Fi Coin Holder. Happy Gaming!

Initial Short Z-Axis Fit Test
Initial Short Z-Axis Fit Test
First Print of The Holder
First Print of The Holder
Completed Coin Storage with Screw Top Containers
Here you can see the final Product
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Retro-Pi Arcade Console Revamp

Starting console
Starting console

Denhac is an interesting place filled with interesting people and often times interesting stuff.  I had grown tired of seeing this Arcade Console floating around the “Please Hack” pile and thought it was high time someone slapped a Retro-Pi in it.

This project was pretty simple and consisted of the following steps:

  1. Disassemble and gut existing console
  2. Remove crappy glue-on finish and sand
  3. Paint
  4. Sand
  5. Paint
  6. Rewire controls using I-PAC
  7. Assemble and plug into Pi
Original Wiring
Original Wiring

Originally I had planned to paint a green Denhac logo onto the surface of the controller, but the stencil I had printed turned up missing and our laser cutter bulb burned out. I’ll probably return to this later. For now we have a nifty retro-pi arcade console that Denhac can take to conventions.

 

Johnny Five Disassemble
Johnny Five Disassemble
un-soldering Original Console
un-soldering Original Console
Fresh Coat of Paint
Fresh Coat of Paint
Fresh Wiring with I-PAC
Fresh Wiring with I-PAC
Finished Product... For Now
Finished Product… For Now
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Update

Brian Weis using 3D Printer

Brian Weis using 3D Printer

Mechanically Separated Games has now officially been transfered to Zokya Media. Why? Who knows, it’s not like any of these concepts of mine go anywhere, but that’s all part of the fun!

I have been living in Denver now for quite some time and a lot has happened. I’m hoping to update this space with new and upcoming projects so be sure to check back often, non-existent reader.

The biggest bit of project related news is that I have purchased a 3D printer kit and assembled it! The kit was a Makerfarm Pegasus 8″, took me about 3 solid days of work, and came together beautifully!  More on that later, but in the mean time here’s a picture of 2 dog keychains I printed out for my sister. They feature her two pups, Kota and Lil.

2016-05-08

For the keychains I found a couple of dog silhouette online, used Inkscape to trace them as vector, then imported them to Blender. Once in Blender I was able to extrude the shape into a 3D Mesh, and add the loops and lettering.

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Goodbye To All Our Stuff

Our move to CO is now fully underway. We decided to go with a moving pod which was quite the adventure.  There were some concerns about getting all our stuff to fit, but thanks to the amazing ‘tetris-like’ skills of my Dad, we were golden! In the end we managed to get everything to fit except for a computer chair, and the pod apparently had weight to spare.

image

image

And here is a video my mom captured of all of our worldly possessions being picked up in our pod!:

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1:25 Scale Ecto-1a Build

Ecto-1a model kit
Ecto-1a model kit

When it rains it pours, I just can’t help myself! Yet another project I am working on. I know what your saying “No wonder you never complete any projects, you are working on too many projects at the same time” and you are probably right. But I’ve tried working on one project at a time, and I seem to lose interest after a while. Perhaps jumping very quickly between different projects will always give me an option for something else to work on for when I am temporarily tired of working on a particular project. Or perhaps I’m just building everything up for an epic failure.

Ecto-1a Dashboard
Ecto-1a Dashboard

Either way I’m proud to announce my 1:25 Scale Ecto-1a build. This is nothing too fancy as it’s just a simple paint and glue kit that you can buy from the store.  These sorts of “Follow the directions” projects are very soothing for me, and act as a break from the projects like the video game or proton pack where I have to over-analyze ever step. In this case I’m able to just check the directions, paint and glue, and zone out.

Interior Progress
Interior Progress

I of course started by sanding the piece that represents the interior to help the paint stick. Then I simply began painting, starting with the grey floor and adding in the black, and coming in with details. What you see here isn’t finished (I think I may paint one of the devices in the back more of a grey). Also I have noticed there seems to be some in-consistencies between online references of the Ecto Interior and what’s in this model. I’ve decided to attempt to not loose any sleep over the fact that my interior will not match the Ecto, and I’m sure most people won’t care or notice.

Kutters Countslash Car. Cutting blades yet to be added
Kutters Countslash Car. Cutting blades yet to be added (No, seriously)

This model is very simplified compared to the Lamborghini model that I’m turning into the countslash car from Carmageddon. There is no engine or intricate parts to worry about, just large pieces for the body, and some stuff that goes on top. After the interior, the next step will probably be to start the sanding and painting of the exterior. The process is fun, but a bit tedious as painting a model car body is very similar to painting a real car body. Many light coats with nearly endless sanding in-between. When done right you get a truly remarkable finish, but it takes time.

Depending on time and how long I can remain interested in this project, there may be a couple surprises in store.

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Proton Pack ‘Metropolis’

Start of proton pack ‘Metropolis’

I have taken some time away from obsessing over game dev, to now obsessing over a prop I always wanted to own… a proton pack! You might be surprised to learn that coming across all the parts you’ll need to build a close to screen accurate prop, is actually quite easy. Thanks to thousands of obsessive fans that won’t let this 30 year old masterpiece be forgotten.

Continue reading “Proton Pack ‘Metropolis’”