ITGM is Finally Finished

Took some time, but I’ve finished the ITGM rings for the graduating 2011 game design group.  They look splendid, if I do say so myself.  In fact, I had to take a ton of photos to try to show exactly what the ring was.

If you’ve read the earlier posts on this, you know that the centerpiece of the ring was a d-20.  I’ve created that d-20 in silver and made it dark gunmetal against the hi-polish finish of the rest of the ring.  The overall shape of the ring is ancient.  Its like a modernized medieval ring.

Its big, but still comfy.

Teeth from the skulls on either side wrap all the way around the shank.

Anyway, hope the fellas dig it.  For those of you who didn’t order one who want one after seeing how badass it is.  (First of all, shame on you for doubting)  Just email me and put your order in.  Remember I’m only charging cost of materials on this one.  You’re just starting out and the last thing you need is to drop 800 bucks on a ring.

Just remember this when you’re rich as hell and I’m still scraping by.   But seriously, congrats.  Go get ’em.

Waxes for Shawn and Ian and a Game Design Update

I’ve made some good progress on Shawn’s 3 ring Big Voodoo as well as Ian’s Cow Clicker Skull.  It may not look like much, but Shawn’s wax will be ready to cast by Monday.

Rather than carve the rings direction into the forehead of the skull, I’m going to carve it separately and set the metal like a gemstone.  The skull itself will be hi-polish silver, but the rings tile will be a blackened, aged finish.  Should look great.

Ian’s two-headed cow conundrum has been combined into a ring that I am MUCH happier with.

I’m still working on skullifying this f’er and Ian and I still have some talking to do about the ears.   Hope to finish this wax next week as well.

I’m also pleased to say that I’ve finished the master-wax for the Game Design class ring.  This wax will be duplicated into lots of waxes so I can further customize for each of my clients.  Still a lot of work to go, but the end is in sight.

Game On….and a Boss Voodoo gets his grill

I’ve made a lot of progress on the Game Design ring.

I was conflicted about this for a while.   I wanted to keep it real small and light, but the design kept growing.  The D-20 isn’t a small shape and to keep it small, I would only be able to use the very top of it.  It just didn’t look right.

But using the entire d-20 and then setting it in this ocular shape (the purple ring) made it look completely badass.   The ring will read S C A D – A T L – I T G M and basically serves as a visual anchor for the inconsistent shape of the D-20.  These guys are always thinking about loops.  Positive feedback loops, negative feedback loops….yeah.  So the ring being a perfect circle sort of stands for that loop feedback system.  The D-20 itself has 2011 on the top.

The dimensional skulls on either side are going to turn out great.  The eyes punch completely through the shank.  The skulls – again – are all about intellect and reason, which is a huge part of what these guys do.  Plus, they look awesome.

The result is perfect.  The ring looks like some kind of medieval artifact.  It makes DeNiro’s ring from Angel Heart look like a Happy Meal toy.  The size?  Yeah, its big.  But I’m guessing these guys approached me for a reason.  If they wanted something small and dainty, they probably would’ve gone somewhere else.  This isn’t unreasonably big…most college rings are big anyway.  It isn’t even as big as my skull ring and I wear that every day.  I’m going to try to include as many hollows as possible to keep this bad boy light-weight.

Speaking of big….

This fist-sized bad-boy is my Boss Voodoo.  You might remember seeing the wax.  I finally attached the gold teeth – at least 7 of the 8 teeth.  For those of you who don’t know anything about metals, I have a huge problem here.  I have a massive block of sterling silver and then tiny little slivers of gold and I need them to stick to each other.  The silver is going to be insanely slow to conduct heat and the gold is going to suck up as much heat as possible until it either melts and balls up or…with a little luck, fuses to the solder and the rest of the ring.  This took me 6 goddamn hours.  The result was epic success followed by epic failure and then more less-than-epic success.  I got the 7 teeth in, but he 8th tooth is a bastard.  He just wont cooperate.  The solder I’m using will NOT run and the tooth is just on the brink of completely liquifying.  This wouldn’t have been a problem if the ring were smaller, but I’ve created the perfect storm on this one.

After a while, I finally gave up and contacted my pals over at Atlanta Diamond Design.  Why? Easy: they have a laser-solder.  That’s right.  Fuck you, 8th tooth, I’m using LASERS on your ass.  Chuck, the laser master over there, is going to finish that 8th tooth for me and then get it back to me next week.  Eat one.

 

Are you game?

This one is cool.  The graduating class of 2011 from the Atlanta campus of the Savannah College of Art and Design’s ITGM department wants a class ring.

We’ve all seen college rings before.  They’re fairly distinct in an old-school kind of way.  They work for some people but I’ve always thought they look like you’re wearing a gold easter basket on your finger.   They also look the same.  All of them.  You can be  a doctor, a lawyer, an architect, an artist, or a general studies major (aka I have no idea what I want to do for a living) and your rings will look identical.

So Daniel, my liaison to these graduates, wants something specific to ITGM, which basically translates to Interactive Design and Game Development.  Yeah, that’s game design.  Before you get excited, its not as fun as it sounds.  Well, actually it is, but its a hell of a lot harder than you think.  These cats are hard-core intellectuals about game design.  That means everything from cards to dice to video games to social media apps.  They study the game, the math behind the game, and the complex systems of play that yadda yadda blagity blar so let’s make a ring.

What you’re looking at here ^^^ is basically the ring.  Yeah it sucks right now, but its going to be great when I’m done.  That blue thing is a D-20, which is game-speak for  20 sided dice.  That D-20 is solid wax, which means I can work it into a ring design for casting.  Pretty appropriate since a good chunk of their work deals with dice and for most of them, the D-20 is kind of the workhorse of game design and prototyping.  Any asshole knows what a pair of dice looks like and most of them have them laying around somewhere.

see?

But only hard-core gamers and designers know what a D-20 is.  For that reason, it will serve as kind of the gemstone of the ring.  The shank is going to be carved from that block of green wax.  A skull – also appropriate for intellectuals (if you don’t understand why, visit my website at www.mtmaloney.com and read through.)

So stay tuned for updates on this.  This one is going to take  some time, but it’ll be worth it.   I’m a big-time arcade rat, so I’m also going to find a way to incorporate something Donkey Kong, Digdug, or Pacman into this.