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My Very First Companion Cube: Hand Colored CubeECraft Version

Giania — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 04:11:51 +0000

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So after chesh gave me the what’s-what on the fate of the Cubecraft site I mentioned in the previous pants-wettingly excited post about finding a papercraft Dr. Venture, I poked around and discovered a papercraft model that I thought would not only be of interest to me, but would be precisely my speed: slow and simple.

As a (late to the party) fan of Portal, the Weighted Companion Cube model seemed like an obvious choice. I only have access to a black and white printer, so I wanted to start with something that did not require any complex re-coloring on my part. That way, if or when I made massive mistakes in the cutting or folding phases, I wouldn’t really lose much in the way of time-consuming coloring work.

So, without further ado, my first papercraft (and cubecraft) model (and walkthrough)!

I clicked the download link for the Weighted Compaion Cube image from cubeecraft.com, which opened up a large JPG version of the model.

the page to get the file

Next I hit print to update my printer settings. [File > Print > Options tab]

Printer settings dialogue box

- I set the paper type to “Letter” or 8.5×11 for standard paper size, set the orientation from “portrait” to “landscape” and set all the page margins to .25 inches.
- Optionally, you can uncheck the headers and footers as I have done here. I would recommend it to avoid any meta info from printing over the design.
- Note of Caution! For Ubuntu’s print settings, I had to set the following options: UNCHECK Fit to width. Set Scale print to 60%. My Windows-based printer settings were already configured to fit the image, so all I had to change was “Portrait” to “Landscape”. If you have the ability to print preview, I recommend doing so to avoid wasting paper!
Next step was arguably the most challenging of all, cutting it out.
- I used a retractable razor blade (box cutter) and my pointed tip, super sharp scissors I got years ago for Home Ec (and they’re still really sharp!). See these for something similar: Fiskars Razor Edged Scissors 8
- I set the sheet on a solid surface that I wasn’t afraid of scratching up and cut the white slits on wide tabs A-G. If you prefer, you can cut the tiny gaps underneath the the smaller tabs A-G. I just used my scissors to carefully cut along the edge on each side, then pulled gently to remove the paper from in between.
- Cutting around the rest is easy, just follow the outline and take your time! All-in-all it took me maybe a half hour to 45 minutes of slow, careful cutting to follow along the edge and get into those couple of tight corners around tabs A, B, E, and F. I went slower partly because my scissors are so sharp, it would have been easy for me to slip and cut right through the image!
Once I had it all printed out and cut out, the fun part – the coloring – started! A few notes on techniques I used to manually color my cube:

all cut out and tarted up!
- To outline the heart, I used Uniball Vision Elite pens, specifically, the dark magenta/pink one from my pack. I don’t think that link QUITE matches what I’ve got, but I left one pack at work and the other is Frith-only-knows-where in the house. But I digress.
- To fill in the heart, and the lines radiating from the center circle, I used Sharpie Liquid Highlighters, which I never have enough reason to use, although they are pretty awesome and last for-freaking-ever. Plus the fine edge on the highlighter was perfect for filling in the narrow lines in one short stroke with no mistakes.
- To darken the “inset” areas, the circular area outside the heart circle and little nitches between the edge pieces, I just used a regular pencil. I tried to fill in each quarter with quick up and down strokes in one direction, slightly rushed so the spacing would provide a bit of a brushed metal look from the little gaps of lighter grey between pencil strokes.
- To fill in the edge pieces, I used a silver Sharpie. A word of caution on this, you should scribble on a blank sheet (or the unused portion of the printout) to make sure it’s a writing with a shiny silver color. If it’s dull or dark, it needs to either be stored tip side down for a while, or written with until the metallic color starts showing. Otherwise, you’ll end up with an inconsistant finish, or have to double up on your coloring (like I did), which will lose some of the subtle shading effects that show through from the printing with one light pass. Use smooth, even, overlapping strokes, as the gaps and edges will be VERY obvious with this method.
To fold it, I started with the cube edges. Then the insert slot tabs, then the other tabs.
The order in which I inserted the tabs: A, B, E, F, C, G, & D.

Finally, the finished cube!

shiny!

The bottom with the credits and the date of completion

For all my talk about papercraft, this was the first real papercraft I’ve done outside of paper chains, origami cups, and the occasional botched snowflake. This was a lot of fun and I may start doing a lot more of these. If assembly tips and papercraft modification ideas are something you’re interested in, let me know and there may be more posts like these in the future.

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Design-a-Vagina Contest Redux Closed

Giania — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 02:26:28 +0000

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Yes, once again our first-ever contest, the Design-a-Vagina Contest (Redux), has come to a close. The results are already in and those results may be expressed with the following image.

If you can’t read that, and I don’t blame you if you can’t, it says “This Page Intentionally Left Blank” – which is to say that the second iteration of the Design-a-Vagina contest has come and gone without an entry. As such, I am somewhat grateful as it means I don’t have to shell out upwards of $150 on prizes, but I am also disappointed that I could not help the woman from North One who had encouraged me to rerun the contest in the hopes of fostering discussion on modern women’s body image issues.

Which is a subject that has been touched upon before by yours truly, although never really discussed outside of that post and mentions as part of the contest. Fun, games, and fabulous un-won prizes aside, are there any issues regarding elective cosmetic surgery and women’s body issues that anyone would like to talk about? If so, we would love to hear from you. No issues can be fixed or even identified unless they are understood, and understanding requires communication.

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Design-a-Vagina Redux: A More Serious Approach

Giania — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 02:54:34 +0000

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The comments and contents of this post are considered NSFW – Not Safe For Work – and we assume no fault if you get tagged for inappropriate conduct. Though we here at RKNet do not consider these contents inappropriate, we do not make the rules or the laws regarding your day-to-day life. Thank you for your understanding.

Welcome one and all to the second run of RKNet’s very first contest, the Design-a-Vagina contest. Previously we here at RKNet had provided a mostly blank sheet, in activity book style, encouraging people to create an image of a realistic or fantastic “ideal vagina”.

Thanks to the interest of a documentary team doing a film for North One Productions, we are proud to reopen the contest, with a few changes. The documentary is going to be called The Vagina Dialogues, with the goal of discussing female sexuality and body image, particularly as it relates to the Holiest-of-holies, the vag, the cooter, the hoo-hoo parts, the vagina, the vulva, the cooch and (depending on who you talk to) the cunt. With a focus on discussing the issue, the acceptable categories for entries to the Design-a-Vagina will be as follows:

150-1000 words on your personal feelings regarding the “ideal vagina” and your thoughts surgery or other modifications to attain an ideal visual appearance. You may express this in fiction if you include a brief opening statement which declares it a fictional piece, and hopefully states the goals of the piece in a short and clear fashion. Please state if you are male, female, mixed gender or transgender. Post your entry in the comments, or on your blog and link to it from the comments.
An original visual representation of what to you constitutes the “ideal vagina”, preferably with a brief description on your overall concept and thoughts surrounding the image. Photos, drawings, computer generated and mixed-media images appropriate. Link to your image (html image tags supported in the comments also) and share your comments. Please state if you are male, female, mixed gender or transgender. This category will rely on the honor system in part, however we will be doing background checks on every image submission.
Personal (i.e. of yourself) audio or video submissions between 1 and 5 minutes, discussing what you consider the “ideal vagina” and your thoughts surgery or other modifications to attain an ideal visual appearance. Please state if you are male, female, mixed gender or transgender.

Prizes will be determined in part by the number of entries in each category. If there are more than 10 in each category, then the chosen winner in each category will receive a $50 gift certificate to JT’s Stockroom (site NSFW) or Amazon.com – winners’ preference. Each category must have at least ten entries for this to apply. If there are less than 10 in each category (yes, even if it’s 10, 10, and 9), then one single winner will be chosen from all categories and be awarded a $50 gift certificate to either JT’s Stockroom or Amazon.com – winner’s preference.

Winners (in each category or in general if too few of each category are submitted) will be chosen at random. This is something I failed to specify before and many thanks to my good friend Matt for pointing out this grevious omission. The goal here is to foster communication, and as such I cannot very well propose that I have what it takes to judge the merit of people’s personal feelings.

Watch this post for updates: I will be trying to get backing to make the prizes more interesting for participants. Though I should hope that the opportunity to discuss these issues publicly would be the biggest draw of all.

There will also be bonuses and/or props available for people who demonstrate that they have promoted this contest. The person who can provide the most proof of promotion will receive a prize of their choosing, either many very public thanks and links by RKNet on your behalf or a $25 gift certificate to Amazon.com.

The deadline for the contest is 06/30/2008, 12:00 pm EST.

Entries will be chosen within a week of the deadline. An update will be made after the close of the deadline declaring the number of entries in each category.

Thank you and good luck!