Fun with Acrylic

A friend of mine recently sent me a photo of a do-it-yourself 3D printer he'd like to make. I actually thought the clear material was plastic, but he informed he that it was actually acrylic! All things aside the design is pretty impressive.

*Image taken from RepRap.org

I was a little bit disappointed to hear this, as I was already fantasizing about using neon coloured plastic to make the printer. If it can make the kinetic gumball machines at Zellers look fun, it can do the same for a 3D printer. While these aren't the ones from Hillcrest mall that I remember (I don't think), I picked out a couple that were fairly close in design.

*Image taken from vendingdirect.com

I actually don't chew gum all that much, but the machines themselves have incredible potential as marble runs (and if you own one you can always open up the bottom for spare change). Someday I'll have to dedicate an entire post to that topic, there are numerous designs and concepts circulating the web that I could spend hours discussing.

Anyway, when I looked up Neon Acrylic, I got a few results like this. These were some acrylic furniture designs by Alexandra Von Furstenburg.

*Images taken from duchessfare.com

Not only is it exactly the material that would be needed (actually the printer building guide recommends a sturdy material, so you could actually use whatever you want as long as it holds up to your liking. I'm just going by the photo) it even comes in at least five fun neon flavours!

Of course the coffee table designs don't look half bad either!

*This one also comes in other colours

*Images taken from alexandravonfurstenberg.com

This one was by a different designer, but at this point I was starting to see the term 'Lucite' pop up in my chain of google search results.

*Image taken from smallshopstudio.com

And finally, after gawking at all of the different uses for acrylic such as decorative accents, novelties and jewelry, here's where the chain of Google search results took me...

*Image taken from guitarmuseum.com

Also available in Red and Blue apparently, when 'B.C. Rich Acrylic Mockingbird' came up on an online guitar store, I searched that and got this. It actually bears a slight resemblance to a guitar seen in a movie series that aired on Family channel a good few years back. Word of caution: if you decide to watch the movies to try and spot the guitar, Zenon's catchphrase may just drive you crazy!

Regardless, this guitar just bumped it's way to the top of my wishlist. Top that with the neon guitar strings I found at Cosmo Music the other day. Actually when I first spotted them I pictured getting something like this. Nonetheless they're both impossibly gorgeous!

Revisiting the Pop up Book

I think I must've watched about fifteen seconds of this before I was completely blown away. It's an alphabet pop-up book that goes above and beyond what you'd think a pop-up book would be. For example, V can be turned into W by positioning the V next to a reflective surface.

The Description on Youtube (as well as the retail site) was as follows...

"From the lenticular cover that changes with the angle of your hands, all the way to the Z, ABC3D is as much a work of art as it is a pop-up book. Each of the 26 dimensional letters move and change before your eyes. C turns into D with a snap. M stands at attention. X becomes Y with a flick of the wrist. And then there's U... Boldly conceived and brilliantly executed with a striking black, red, and white palette, this is a book that readers and art lovers of all ages will treasure for years to come.

MARION BATAILLE is graphic and book designer who has never before been published in this country. She lives in Paris. This is just a hand-made mock-up of the actual book which publishes in Oct. 2008. We couldn't be more excited about it."

I couldn't find much more information on Marion Bataille than that, but apparently she's got a new book out called '10'. It comes with it's own slipcover that fits over the '10' on the front. According to the video, it looks like it's just been finished this year.

The History of the Wilhelm Scream

It's not uncommon to hear the same sound effects in more than one film. Think of it as stock footage. It saves time, and cuts down on production costs. But it's not as prominent as repeating a video clip. Most people may not realize it, but some of the most common sound effects were originally recorded as far back as the 1950s.

One example is the Wilhem Scream (contains violence).

*Video borrowed from Youtube*

I'll admit, I saw some of these films, but I could never put my finger on where I'd heard it before.

Anime in Advertising

Mascots are not uncommon. We regularly see cartoon characters on cereal boxes and snacks marketed towards kids. Think of Fruit Loops, what better mascot than a Toucan could be used to advertise rainbow colored, fruit flavored cereal? It just fits, not to mention kids think rainbows are buckets of fun to begin with.

But what about an Anime Character designed for a Digital Audio Workstation? This isn't something kids would use, not to mention Anime is hardly related to music production. I know that when I think of music production, my imagination generates 18-30 year old boys and men running cranking tunes out of a basement, bedroom, or garage. They might hook up with a record label someday, they might not. But I doubt they're very interested in Anime drawings...

Unless her costume is designed to look like the program's interface...

FL Studio (formerly Fruityloops) is a popular D.A.W. (Digital Audio Workstation) marketed by Image-Line. Currently at version 9, the program comes with a number of VSTs, Samples, and Tools for creating music of all categories and genres. It's fairly easy to use, and doesn't have a steep learning curve.

Meet FL Chan...

*Image Borrowed from FL Studio/Image-Line Site*

She was designed and rendered by Uruido, a Japanese FL user. Image-Line's response was to officially 'adopt' her as the FL Studio mascot. Her artwork now ships with each copy of FL Studio, and can be loaded as a background image within the program.

 *Screenshot of my own FL Studio workspace*

She was also used in the Fruity Dance plugin. It's not particularly useful, but it does render an adorable chibi that 'dances' in sync with any music that's playing. The faster the music, the faster she dances. It's that intelligent. Also, users get to choose between 5 or 6 actions, including Hula, Breakdancing, and a wave that resembles the Caramelldansen.

The program already had a large fanbase, and with the introduction of FL Chan, fanart began to pop up all over the internet. Representatives created a thread on their official forum for the purpose of documenting each unique FL Chan sighting, including artwork, animations, 3D models, videos, and of course music.

So you might say that Viral Media has helped them gain a reputation. Also, FL Studio became a popular choice for creating musical accompaniment to Vocaloid Songs. Vocaloid is a synthesizer program that takes pre-recorded audio samples of a human voice, and strings them together to create realistic singing. Users only need type in the lyrics of their song, and choose a pitch for each note/syllable.

The Japanese version of Vocaloid also uses Anime mascot characters. For each voice 'bank' that's sampled, a new avatar is created. However, the software didn't gain much recognition until the debut of Vocaloid 2, with the 'Hatsune Miku' bank. Again, Viral media. The mascots grabbed so much attention that other Vocaloid merchandise was created.

But here's the difference between North American and Japanese merchandise... We make Mugs and T-Shirts. They make Toys and Video Games. You can actually buy plush versions of most Vocaloid Avatars (I have two myself), or collectible figurines, and keychains. They usually pop up at annual anime conventions (Anime North in particular, held every May), ranging in price from 2 to 50 dollars.

Now that I've gone off-topic, I'll bet you're wondering what ever happened to Uruido... Well, he went on to design several other mascots. They're not all official yet, but it's definitely a possibility. Image-Line also picked up his 'Harmless Chan' as a mascot character for it's VST, 'Harmless'.

 *Image borrowed from this blog*

 *As seen on Youtube, Harmless Chan with Harmless VST*

Here, it's easier to see Uruido's goal. He designs costumes for each character that contain design elements also used in the VST interface. At very least colors, but he's gone so far as to include knobs, sliders and keyboards (See FL Chan's skirt) before... An excellent example would be Sytrus Chan.

 

*As seen on Youtube, Sytrus Chan with Sytrus VST*

More of his designs (Ogun Chan, Slice-X Chan, Parametric EQ, Candy Chan, and Deckadance Chan) are on display here.

New Domain

To make this blog easier to access, you can now use http://www.nikigerrier.tk as well as http://nikigerrier.blogspot.com/

Blog Launch!

I really don't know how many casual bloggers bother to make an introductory post, (not counting the Wordpress "Hello World") but this also isn't a casual blog. I don't really 'do' non-casual blogs unless they relate to Web-development, so I'm even more lost. I'll just introduce myself and be done with it...

My Name is Niki, I'm a 2nd year Graphic Design student, and for the next semester (or two) I'll be running a Design blog. Expect coverage of my own personal work, as well as reviews and blurbs about the works of others. Occasionally I'll just highlight something I find interesting.

If I'm really bored I might post random tutorials or useful sites & resources.