Monday, December 31, 2018

Realistic paper snowflake design

realistic paper snowflake

It is that time of year when people make absolutely horrible paper cutout snowflakes in shapes that couldn't possibly exist. Sometimes even with 8-fold symmetry instead of 6.


I was tasked with creating some snowflakes for our office holiday party in a laser cutter and decided to go for real looking snowflakes instead of the fake garbage.

Luckily, someone on the internet already had this idea and published an instructables article about making 6-fold symmetry snowflakes --- including two that they painstakingly cut out to match actual photographs of real snowflakes.
https://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Make-6-Pointed-Paper-Snowflakes/

So I took the photos of their paper snowflakes and turned them into vectors files that could be used in a laser cutter.



They turned out so well that they inspired another user of the same makerspace to use the files and create some for their own company holiday party decorations... which I found out only because I was coincidentally attending the same party!


Of course I was really glad to see the snowflakes there and so I decided to put the design files up on Thingiverse so that anyone can download them and make their own, without further ado here they are!
https://www.thingiverse.com/jlansey/collections/realistic-snowflakes

Feel free to comment if you've made some or have any suggestions.

Sunday, December 16, 2018

FELINE Magazine for cats by cats


There is something special about cats (and chickens), they do not make any facial expressions. This allows us (humans) to be really good at projecting imaginary emotions onto cat photos and is one reason for their proliferation in memes. Having lived with a cat for about a year now I've learned that cats behaviors can be quite complex and inexplicable, it seems like the cat has some agenda that you just aren't privy to.

Some friends and I decided to give a voice to these cats, in a fashion magazine based on Vogue or Glamour. Naturally we have an exclusive interview with a celebrity cat "Venus the Two Faced Cat" who has 1.6 million instagram followers (and counting) and who my Mom already knew of. We also have lots of fake ads and I even pushed in a couple real ads in for Astro Ledger and Loud Bicycle, targeted at cats of course.


Anyway this magazine has been super fun to produce, and yes, we will be actually printing glossy copies 52 pages long.

Sorry this part now sounds like an ad but seriously if you want to get the magazine for yourself or a friend then check it out here and use the coupon code KAZUL for $3 off

www.felinemag.com/


Welcoming comments and questions below as usual!