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Tetris goes 3D, but better than Welltris
The best thing about this homemade Tetris shelf unit? You don't have to build it out of whatever pieces randomly fall out of the sky. The second best thing? It holds your stuff. Well, not your stuff-- not until you decide to follow the tutorial on Instructables and build your own set.We love gamer crafts to death, but they usually aren't functional. These shelves not only look like things that are in a video game, they also can be used for doing things.The first person to build a shelf set based on a layout from Mode B of Game Boy Tetris wins 1,000 DS Fanboy points. (Offer only applies to players who do not hurt themselves with tools while building shelves. Also, points will not be awarded.) Oh, and sorry if we offended any Welltris fans. [Via Siliconera]
Insider Trader: What the ! -- In-game trade product searches
Each week, Lisa Poisso brings us Insider Trader, your inside line on making, selling, buying and using player-made products.How can you pimp that hawt new epic if you don't know what gems and enchants exist to put in it? And once you find out what's available, how can you find a craftsperson who can do it? What used to be an excruciating hunt-and-peck process is easing up, thanks to several mods growing in popularity among crafters. These mods allow customers to whisper a tradesperson and run direct searches for specific types of products -- a direct peek into what that crafter can do for you and your gear.First popularized by jewelcrafters and enchanters, these handy mods are now available for other trades as well. If you like to ponder the possibilities without feeling like you're tying up a crafter's time and attention, you'll love the power of running your own searches. It's all handled via /whisper, so there's no public spam and you won't bother a soul. Rifle through what's available by stats, gem color, enchanting reagents required, gem rarity and more, all via the tradesperson's mod -- you install nothing to be able to use it. It really is that simple!
WoW Ladies community, mods come out from hiding
The WoW_Ladies livejournal group is one of my very favorite WoW communities, so I was disappointed to see last week that their latest posts were closed to everyone but members of the community. They'd been dealing with an expanding audience lately (brought on partly by attention from WoW Insider), and apparently there were a few issues arising among the membership.But the community has started posting again (bringing about this completely awesome crochet Draenei), and the mods (formerly pretty unknown-- I've been watching them for a while, and I had no idea who was in charge over there), have made a very public statement about the future of WoW_Ladies. In addition to taking a more high-profile position, they have said that the recent closing was not their choice, but rather either a glitch, or the work of someone not a mod. And they've landed on a great compromise: all posts will be public by default, with an option for each poster to lock them to the community only. They've also made the very great choice of leaving the community open to men-- some men with significant others, they say, "like seeing the women here post - it helps them identify with their partners and helps them get ideas on how to join." Personally, I completely appreciate a place where a woman's perspective on the game gets placed front and center, rather then consigned to a minority, as in many other games media outlets.The other good news is that they're working on a brand new layout for the community, so it seems like things are jumping over there. We're glad to see they made it through the drama, and are back as one of the most intelligent and interesting groups in the WoW community.
Wii Warm Up: Raw Material
These chairs are made out of recycled Playstation 2 plastic. If it were any other console, we could make jokes about the Wii creating an instant surplus. Unfortunately for our ROFLs, the PS2 is still doing great, especially for a seven-year-old console! So we'll joke about the PS2's reliability instead-- these chairs were probably made from defective PS2's, which are one of the most abundant resources available. Ha!Our question is for the Bob Wii-las out there: what could you make out of Wiis? Hopefully something to punish us for making a Wii pun just now.[Via Wonderland]
Uber apron and other WoW crafts
Alice from Wonderland posted this great apron Craftster dishwasher182 (I guess we know what she does after the pizza is eaten) made for her significant other for Valentine's Day. That's a great on-equip buff. Too bad it's soulbound, though-- if you want one, I guess you'll have to make your own custom printed iron-on. And bonus points to another Craftster for pointing out that the apron itself is in fact a blue item. Ha!There's also this knitted Tauren hat, which looks great, but I can't quite see how it's supposed to be worn. How can you see wearing it with that big bullsnout hanging in your face? Also Tauren-related, this hilarious sketch currently for sale on Etsy. And there's also these handmade (not by the same Alice, though) Ankh earrings-- perfect for the shaman in your life who occasionally needs some resurrecting (see #5 in the description).It's probably because I have no craftmaking talent whatsoever, but all this great fanmade craft stuff continues to amaze me. Keep up the good work, guys.
Honor your Wiimotes with a brittle, knobby throne
For those of you whose Wiimotes are heart-breakingly horizontal, and whose Lego bricks are crying out to be moderately useful, then we have the perfect solution for both of your problems. Everyone else: we have a picture of a Wiimote stand made of Lego for you.When the Wii-playing Lego robots win control of all of Earth's resources in a series of high-stakes Wii Sports Bowling tournaments, we will all be locked in their vast factories and forced to build giant versions of these thrones from which they'll beep their terrible edicts. There's no stopping them, so we might as well get some practice building those thrones.
Team Rocket, blast off at the speed of you folding paper!
Okay, here's where we admit to watching rather a lot of the Pokemon cartoon in college. It was a fun social thing to do after class, and somewhere along the way, our ironic enjoyment evolved into actual enjoyment. Then, right after the movie came out, our enjoyment devolved into complete disinterest.Looking at this Meowth hot-air-balloon papercraft makes us nostalgic for the days of rooting for incompetent homeless child Ash and his friends to capture and train all the Pokemans they could while avoiding Team Rocket's premeditated child abuse.
Perler bead crafting evolves
This question mark block has extended its form into the fabled third dimension! This mysterious realm of depth is unexplored by either 8-bit explorers or Perler bead artists. This bold scientific discovery promises to usher a new age for Super Mario Bros. crafts!Shown above, an artifact from the third dimension, looking very much like one of our own question mark blocks, but somehow composed of many two-dimensional blocks working in tandem to form a strange array of squares. These squares exist simultaneously in the normal two dimensions and in the newly-discovered third! This is a hypersquare.[Via Wonderland]
Mario clock version 1-1
Will D'Angelo of the Wiicast.com recently got obsessed with his world of timecraft again and made this Super Mario Bros. clock representing World 1-1 from the classic. A few weeks ago, after drinking a glass of impulse and ambition, he made a Donkey Kong clock and decided to continue bridging the gap between crafts and gaming. Sure, it's not "art," but for under $20 it's still a neat project for a lazy afternoon, or when trying to keep the kids busy on the weekend.This time around D'Angelo makes the instructions for creating the clock expressly clear. He also seems to be getting the hang of the game-clock-craft as he's also included tips on how to make construction easier on yourself during construction. If people start obsessing about game clocks as much as they do game cakes we may have to make a gallery.
Game Boy coin purse is as charming as the real system
We don't have much use for a coin purse, since we only carry fat rolls of cash when we roll out in our Fanboy-mobiles, but then, we don't have much use for the original monochrome brick Game Boy either, and we love that to death.For the low, low price of $30 (which is still more than the Game Boy itself) you can get this cute handmade coin purse. We love the handmade-ness as much as the Game Boy-ness. It makes the whole thing look like a labor of love, which is what gamer crafts are all about![Via Wonderland; also posted today: this amazing set of arcade-game Keds, which includes Super Bros.-inspired shoes.]
DS Lite gets "liter," less functional
This is one crafter's answer to all the criticisms about the DS Lite being too bulky and sturdy. Or it would be, if those criticisms existed and weren't crazy. Junyang's papercraft DS Lite is actually part of a series of miniaturized electronic devices, any of which would make a very nice (and very small) display piece. But we especially love when paper and glue come together to honor our favorite handheld. And look at that teensy Nintendogs cartridge! It actually fits into the cartridge slot. That's the kind of detail work that has us rushing to print our own and get started, after we edit the image to change Nintendogs to Elite Beat Agents. Knowing our stumpy, clumsy fingers, the end result of our folding and gluing won't be quite so photogenic. But hey, that's no reason not to try it yourself!
Donkey Kong mural proves that office supplies can be useful
We miss college. Watching The A*Team reruns between classes, inviting everyone who came down the hall to play some Smash Bros., spending all day making giant tributes to classic games ... Well, okay. We never made a huge Donkey Kong mural in the windows of one of the college's buildings using nothing but Post-Its. Luckily, a group of UC Santa Cruz students stepped in and took the job upon themselves. The bar has officially been raised for college timewasting. This thing is really beautiful.[Via Joystiq]
We're hot for the Van Halen-style DS
Now this is how you play Jam Sessions. Flickr user Mr. Atrocity and his girlfriend gave their DS systems (both Phat, and we're happy to see people sporting them) custom paint jobs-- his a replica of Eddie Van Halen's guitar finish, and hers a lavender with gold details. Not only does the gallery contain pretty pictures of modded systems, but it is a great tutorial for spraypainting your own DS, which is exactly the kind of thing you should have a tutorial for, unless you want to play New Super B Button Is Stuck Down Bros. or Trauma Center: Under the Red Blob.
IT'S DANGEROUS TO GO ALONE! TAKE THIS QUILT.
This quilt from Craftster member dishwasher182 combines two of our favorite things in life: The original Legend of Zelda and being warm while sleeping. We aren't sure how we'd rank those two things. Maybe we should start quilting, so we can have our own enormous pixel-perfect Link holding a very ziggurat-esque Triforce. But we aren't sure we're up to the challenge of cutting and sewing together over 400 squares. In fact, we know we aren't. We're exhausted from reaching up to the number keys just now.Seen any amazing game-related crafts lately? Let us know!
A Flickr gallery of Perler beaded pixel art
If you haven't already hit the crafts shop and busted out the iron to make your own Perler beaded creations, then perhaps you'll allow a wave of inspiration to wash over you, courtesy of Flickr user foglera's delightful collection. We've got Pikachu, Birdo, Bomberman, Crono, and Animal Crossing's K.K. Slider in here, and plenty more. [Via Digg]
Knit Yourself an iPod Sock
Macworld.uk has a sweet little article laying out directions for knitting your own iPod sock. If you have some yarn and needles, you can save yourself £19 and roll your own. The pattern involves nothing more than 30 cast-on stitches in a knit-perl[1]-knit-purl pattern, switching colors after 8 rows to a second color for 34 rows. Even a knitting moron like myself could probably finish this project. If you give it a try, let us know how it turned out for you. [1]Computer humor. Hah!
Happy Mac cross stitch
TUAW reader Benjamin White sends in this photo of a cross stitch project he recently crafted. After weighing the merits of OS X and OS 9 art, he decided to go with the OS 9 Happy Mac startup face. The project is about 2-by-3-inches in real life and came out beautifully. White thinks he should have left more white space around the edges of the icon, but I think it looks great. I particularly love the gradation of the shadow under the main unit with the different colors of gray. The Apple logo is just suggestive enough to remind us of what it is supposed to be without going into too much detail. Kudos!
Build Sonic a papercraft playground for his Bday
It was the speedy blue hedgehog's fifteenth birthday on Saturday so, to commemorate the occasion, Sega of Japan has created this gorgeous little papercraft (.pdf) of Sonic the Hedgehog's equivalent to World 1-1: Green Hill Zone. Just cut it out, assemble it, and place it in the center of your retro-gaming shrine and, just for a little while, Mario and his army of nostalgia-laced tchotchkes will play second fiddle to Sonic and his paper playground. Live it up. Build - Sonic Green Hill Zone papercraft (.pdf) Read - Build Sonic a paper model to celebrate his big birthday!
Make your own Quake Papercraft
If the Wii controller and Katamari Prince papercraft projects didn't suit your gaming preferences, then try making your own Quake-themed papercraft models of the Shambler and/or Marine. Captain Nod's site has links to models and instructions to build your own DIY nerd sculptures.[Via Cathode Tan]
Craftwork: gaming inspired scarf and tote
Cory Doctorow at BoingBoing always has the goods on gaming inspired crafts. This week he put up links to a Super Mario Bros. 3 scarf by one Ms. Helen Li featuring the cast of characters on one side and their "smushed/dead" counterparts on the other. Brilliant! Also for your enjoyment is a Space Invaders tote bag knitted by Brenda. The formula of adding nostalgic videogame icons to your crafts project works every time. Words can't describe how badly I want this stuff! [Via BoingBoing 1,2]
