artificer-dice

[artificer-dice]

Just a nice little d20 I finished a while ago! It's been staying at my desk on a little stand ever since I finished it up!

#dice #dnd dice #homemade dice #morning reblog #just a few days late though

[artificer-dice]

Just a nice little d20 I finished a while ago! It's been staying at my desk on a little stand ever since I finished it up!

#dice #dnd dice #homemade dice

[artificer-dice]

I finally got a flower drying kit and I had some flowers (my wonderful partner brought some home a few weeks back) which is super cool for dice making because I've always wanted to try using real flowers

It's just..

I'm going to need a bigger mold.

Welp I have a week to let those dry completely and figure this out. Hopefully we can get the printer back up and running soon!

[artificer-dice]

Dice Trays // Sterling Makes

#other people make cool things

[artificer-dice]

Happy Halloween!

Technically from last year, but I don't know if I ever posted this here!

#pumpkin dice #i didn't do anything special this time #i spent the day putting up curtain rods and curtains #because the apartment has been getting really cold so we finally got the stuff yesterday #and we really should have done this sooner because it snowed today! #we get lake effect snow here apparently and now we know what that means #but they seem to be helping #i still have the office and bedroom to do #but those are one window each and not 5 windows like the main living space has #and now i have to recover because stepladders and i do not get along #i may have pushed a bit too much today but i got the job done #I'm working on something else as well but i need to fix it before i can do any of the next steps for it #anyway happy Halloween!

[artificer-dice]

Hey, so, uh, my account apparently got hacked and both this and my sideblog (gobs-o-dice) got nuked.

It doesn't seem like tumblr is likely going to be able to recover them for me.

So I guess this is time to start fresh?

I guess there wasn't anything too critical here, but I've had the account for over 10 years, so there was a lot of inertial stuff that had been built up, which will suck to replace.

[artificer-dice]

It's so glassy!

3 makes a success! This one took a bit longer since it took two tries but it worked!

#guess which design took two tries to get to work? #i love it though it's so cute #I'm conflicted on whether i want to ink it yet because i could use it as a master first #but i got my third which is a success! i learned a new thing too #which is good but was frustrating #got dimensional accuracy within .2mm this time #could probably do perfect accuracy if i remade the mold to be a bit neater but .2 isn't bad and isn't even noticeable #i slightly overdid either the 6 the 1 or both #but everything else was a perfect 15 which is cool

[artificer-dice]

Master making progress is going well! The second one (the green minecraft font) actually turned out well enough I would be able to use it as a master if I had spent a bit more time carefully cleaning it up! Which is progress! I'm still managing to get dimensional accuracy up to like 3/10 of a millimeter which is always nice!

Also the design I currently have going for test #3 under the cut, as well as a small explanation as to what I'm doing to make these.

This might not make sense if you've seen how dice and dice molds are normally made, but these are the actual masters being used to.. well, make master dice. I wanted to try to make a design that challenged the limits of the printer and I would say that this level of detail is pretty much the limit!

This was 1pt lines used to scale, which is really tiny.

Also the faces are painted for two reasons: to check how the faces turned out and, more importantly, to help reduce the silicone that seeps into the pieces. I wasn't the neatest with the application which would be why some look like they have imperfections when they really don't. That's just paint.

Each of these faces result in a small individual mold that I can insert into a larger base mold, which means I can print every face flat for the best detail I can get and so I don't have to use a ton of silicone to make a mold that is usually used once. I've been mixing up 10ml and having extra for these as opposed to the usual 40-50ml of silicone it takes to make a normal mold.

This does mean that as early as next week, I can start the process for a different die, which I'm planning on going for a 30mm d20, or the "chonk" size since they should be easier to do than a 20mm one (the standard size), and it won't take as much material to work out the details like a 50mm oversized one would.

#i have the power of the cut on mobile now #dice #polyhedral dice #artificer dice #handmade dice #mj reinvents the wheel #these are turning out fairly consistent #which is great #i also just need to practice doing the actual process too to make them even more consistent #just hoping everything I've learned so far actually translates well to other shapes

[artificer-dice]

I promised pictures!

The tiny font is so cute and while these still have some small imperfections on a few faces, it's like 98% of the way there! All issues that I could super easily fix if I just remade the base mold (but I'm too stubborn to do that because I haven't used the first one enough and it technically works)

The first time something works, it's a fluke.

The second time something works, it's a coincidence.

The third time it works, it actually works.

At least, this is the philosophy I use when making prototypes for things.

I finally reached the fluke stage of the prototyping process and just started the second test. I have a bit of cleaning up to do on it, but I have not been this confident about any of the other iterations and if I get consistent enough results, I can actually move on to other dice shapes! (As much as I just love making a ton of d6s, I just want to be able to move on to the others too)

#mj reinvents the wheel #handmade master dice progress #handmade dice #d6 #dice

[artificer-dice]

Well attempt #2 (clear) is almost passable and a lot better than attempt #1 (blue) but I'm almost done with a re-work of the mold and everything so hopefully #3 works out better..

We'll have to see sometime tomorrow.

#handmade dice #mj reinvents the wheel #but really though if it weren't so wonky it could almosy pass as a workable dice master #plus the blemished faces you can't see in the picture #but it wasn't nearly as wonky as the first attempt and it actually made me simply the design #which would actually make the other shapes easier to do in the future #having a bit of trouble with the insert mold forms sealing themselves together and making it almost impossible to get the face plate out #so that needs some work but hopefully not too much #which may mean i have to go back through and rework some of the things i already did because i got ahead of myself because of course i did #anyway I'm taking things slower as i should but i like quick results #im using red for the next one #probably one of the new resin dyes

[artificer-dice]

One thing I'm notorious for is having way too much confidence in my abilities and ideas. Is this necessarily a bad thing? Not entirely.

I'm picking up an older idea I was working on back in February because I want to see if I can make it work now that I have access to the 3d printer and it seems to be going well.

I may be getting a bit ahead of myself because despite having no finished proof-of-concept, I've been working on different designs to use with it. Again, not necessarily a bad thing, but if I have to pivot again, I'd now have to redo 42 parts instead of like.. the 6 I actually need to try it out.

And I know I'm being cryptic but it's one of those projects where I've given up on it before so I'd like to see some promising results before going into too much detail.

I should hopefully have a working prototype tomorrow and then a proof of concept the next day.

(Now would be a great time to have the quick-curing plastic I used last time but I had to use it all because it goes bad quickly)

#artificer dice bts #project details #or somewhat the lack thereog #if all goes well and i can keep going in this direction i may be able to do fully customizable dice for commissions by October #which would be right in time for the holidays which will likely help me fill commission slots easier and have a better end result as well #I'll also have to do some tests to see just how detailed i can be with this so that'll be interesting too

[artificer-dice]

So I've been working on a project and it was starting to just not work, then the printer had a literal meltdown on an overnight print..

(That teal blob is the plastic that was supposed to make up like 90% of that print)

So I'm switching gears again and a new method prototype is in the works. Once I can get the printer to stop fussing.

(I did clean this up, it just took several hours and I now have a somehow heart-shaped burn on one of my fingertips because I accidentally tried to brace it when I was cleaning molten plastic off of the print head)

#so the FDM master project is going great #i have a hard-shelled pencil box full of failed prototype pieces #the method I'm attempting now seems like it would be more complicated but it isnt #at least from the perspective of how precise i have to get the prints to be beyond the setup phase #but yeah that print was an absolute mess #something went wrong and i stopped it about halfway through in the middle of the night because i could tell it failed #but there was a suspicious lack of material mess #no spaghetti strings or anything #and then the next morning i found that monstrosity #i took the head apart and cleaned it up this morning until it no longer smelled like burning plastic whenit got up to temp #thankfully nothing was ruined enough to need replaced #i also tried to switch filaments after that since I've been having issues with that one #and I'm having new issues with this one #so I'm un-spooling and re-spooling a third filament that hopefully only has the tangle issue because i can work with just untangling it #itll just take hours is all #i have faith this will work better than the first iteration as long as i can get decent prints made #project progress updates #I'm aware i haven't said much about what I'm doing other than showing like one photo like 2 weeks ago #but i have trouble with sharing things in-progress if im not sure theyll pan out in case i end up just abandoning it #hopefully this will be different

[artificer-dice]

Celebrate how many dice you own (trust me, it's never too many) with this 2 1/4" pinback button/can badge! Available at

[artificer-dice]

So I may be up to something...

(The die on the right is a 30mm chonk for scale)

[artificer-dice]

So I may be up to something...

(The die on the right is a 30mm chonk for scale)

#guess who has unlimited access to a 3d printer now #it's an fdm printer which isnt considered ideal for dice masters but I'm making it work #which is why this has taken so long to make #i think I'm at like two weeks in so far? admittedly some breaks from flare-ups but still #I'm also making a second style and have to do a 12-hour print just to make the mold system i need for this #theyre 50mm #about the size of a baseball #and i have the rounded liquid-core masters printed already #i have yet to try to do the shaped ones #only because i haven't gotten around to it not because I'm worried about it #i have a lot of ideas with these and i hope i can make them work #also peep new font variant #it's closer to the original font i made when i first made masters for myself #dice #polyhedral dice #dnd dice #artificer dice #handmade dice #d20 #mj's shop talk #also the cup in the background is one i designed and i really like it

[artificer-dice]

Some experiments with the color shift powder I got a while back with the old-font mold d20.

It's been super hazy here for the past two days because somehow the wildfire smoke is only just now reaching us. It's super weird.

As far as dice-making, I have everything set up again which is cool. I just dropped off a commission package at the post office, and I managed to forget to get any final photos or videos of it.. oops!

I made a second one of these old-font d20s but it still needs polished since I haven't actually gotten around to making a mold of the polished version yet, so they come out matte. I can apparently just polish them right out of the mold like that and it works okay, which is nice to know.

There's a decent amount of stuff I want to try to get done for the shop just in general but I'm just going to take it a lot easier than I have in the past so I don't stress myself out into not doing it at all.

#dice #dnd dice #dungeons and dragons dice #handmade dice #polyhedral dice #d20 #dice pics #update under the cut #accidentally posted this to the wrong blog oops

[artificer-dice]

We finally got moved into the apartment! Well, we technically got everything moved in on Sunday, but we've got like 80% of the way unpacked!

I'm pretty sure I found all of my dice-making supplies, but I might do a check later today for that.

#not dice #I'm pretty much just now getting settled enough I'm willing to bring out the stuff and start making things again #I've been working on most of the unpacking while my partner is at work #and apparently i have some mental things to work through when it comes to productivity here #but it would be nice to start up again