Hexagonal Cities:

Here is another massive image dump, This one is hexagon themed city planning and architecture:

I will start out with a hexagonal pyramid/temple complex I designed a long time ago and recently modeled in Sketchup.  It isn't a photo-quality render, but its modeled with some attention for exterior details, such as individual steps. The overall structure is about 360 feet high, and there are a few human cutouts on there to give it some scale. Look close!

The rest of these are historical record images I have acquired from around the internet as inspiration. I never had any intention of sharing these, so I never bothered to keep track of the sources. As always, I will gladly include attributions or delete images upon request. 

Sorry for the lack of commentary, but I don't have anything to add.

More Black Anima

Black Anima is energy steeped in demise... As the lighter anima are manifestations of life force, black anima is the antithesis of that. In the larger scheme of cyclical birth and death, black anima is the remains of life that lingered and either refused, or were bound from cycling back into the God-Wall, the font of all things from which all life energy emerges and returns. Life-force so denied, or otherwise corrupted, becomes a strange and erratic force, filled with loathing toward the living, a desire to consume the life forces of things still alight with anima, to absorb it as a tantalizing taste of life departed, and/or destroy that living spark to quell the agony of the soul that the living induce upon those denied rest. Those sentient things animated through the auspice of black anima rarely opine on their moods and motivations, and the few who have are typically ones who sought the power and longevity black anima grants; so their testimony is clouded by their own corruptions and motivations. Just so, they present little consensus and cannot be relied upon to speak for the hateful motivations of lesser abominations bound with black anima.

Some things that thrive in rot and decay can become saturated in black anima, and it can be harvested from such things... the most common source of black anima to be so harvested are fungi that grow in dark and rotten bogs or upon corpses, but it can also accumulates in things that feed for prolonged periods on carrion, rot, and decay. Aquatic bottom feeders, rodents, and many vermin accumulate black anima over time, although harvesting black anima from things is normally impractical. These absorbers of black anima often are transformed over time into dark things, and this is the true source for many strange abominations that lurk in the remote and dark bogs, crypts, and caverns. Malevolent oozes, slimes, and fungi; aquatic monstrosities, strange vermin and carrion beasts; all often blamed on mad wizards, but most all have been borne out of humble creatures corrupted by black anima.

I see correlations between black anima as a magical concept, and petroleum... both are created through a corrupted or incomplete decomposition process that forces the stored energies of the source material to be transformed instead, as a toxic corruption of what it began as.

Xiombaca and the Garden of Thorns

Xiombaca and the Garden of Thorns...
The x, pronounced as a nearly silent z, EYE-ohm-Bah-kah.

She is an ancient manifestation of chaos; destruction through rampant, unbridled creation. Typically, as in this decaying sketch, she is depicted nude on a throne, her true face disguised in her own growth as false faces both beautiful and grotesque manifest about her true face. She is crowned with a halo of thorns, and is adorned only in the thorny vines that grow from her womb, engulfing her throne and court, choking and destroying all around her.

Her throne is made of suffering, depicted as men or angels bent into subservience at her whim to provide comfort at their own expense, as Xiombaca's garden of destruction wraps and racks their bodies with pain.

The vines as depicted are both emerging and entering, aspects of both the intrusive and expulsive acts of procreation, but thorned as they are, demonstrate the wound of sundered purity, the violence of rape, and the pain of birth; all made grizzly and undeniable. She is a twisted and dark fertility goddess, a furrow in which only ill seed grows.

Soviet Architectural Dreams

I have collected some interesting images from around the web over the years, and keep them around for inspiration. I have just moved most of those to Picasa and off my PC, and now that they are in the cloud, I thought I would share them here as well:

I am not going to even try to attribute these images, but I believe these are various concept drawings of proposed urban glory projects of the Soviet Union. I apologize for the wall of images; it's a pet peeve of mine, but I have nothing to say or add to the images, and so unfortunately, must simply provide them as is.

Trigger Pulled

The big batch of walnut Pentimoes arrived yesterday.

Devon and I were collectively to impatient to do some sort of foolish unboxing, let alone take time to photograph the jigsaw fun of the cut sheet still held together with adhesive paper. So, in the aftermath of all the release and peel of Pentimoes from the sheet and scrap, I took a few photos of the unfinished set to share: 

What was left of the sheet of wood.

The two kinds of scrap. In casting, this sort of thing is called sprew.
Laser cutting needs a fun name for the cast off bits too.

The bag of scraps. I am hoping to find a fun use for these odd bits.

The Money Shot! Actual Pentimoes, next to the ol' CoT.

I still need to stain the tiles and paint the pips white, and of course, there are three tiles missing from this set still, which I will be ordering soon. Those are the 'quints': 1-1-1-1-1, the 2-2-2-2-2, and the 3-3-3-3-3.  I am considering getting three sets of those. I can fit ten tiles on the small sheet, and it seems having redundant tiles that are all matching may be a useful thing, both as back up, and for rule variants.

Any tiles I don't have 'pipped' will get a Mayan Oroboros motif, and will be suitable as a wild card, or wild-tile in this case. The only question is: do I get one wild-tiles and three sets of quints,  four wild-tiles and two sets of quints, or one set of quints, and seven wild-tiles?

I am leaning toward two sets of quints and four wild-tiles... Seven wild seems a bit extreme on one end, and three sets of quints seems excessive on the other. double quints and four wild seems like the best solution. I wonder how many other game designs have been based on manufacturing restrictions?

Pulled the Trigger

Ordered the large sheet of Pentimoes on walnut laminated mdf, for about $150.  I really loved the way the burned cherry smelled, but after a few weeks, that lovely fragrance fades, and what I really want are dark tiles, so walnut is the best choice. Starts dark, stays dark, and uses less stain to get darker.

With this order, I got a $50 voucher on my next order's manufacturing costs, excluding mats and shipping, so I will order the small sheet to complete the set once I get this one and check it over.  The small sheet has some 'throwaway' tiles on it, so if there are any imperfections or issues with some tiles on the large sheet, I can use the small sheet to get replacements for those (pretty damn clever if I do say so myself).

Currently, the small sheet's manufacturing is about $40 worth, so this also gives me a little time to brainstorm a small project I can fit in the margins of the small sheet to use up the last $10 of the voucher.

Dice!

I ordered a set of steel dice from Shapeways.

The photo isn't very good, and there is a slightly oxidized patina on the surfaces that didn't get buffed, making them look a bit muted in the photo here.

Most of the dice are surprisingly hefty, except the d4 which is much lighter than you might think looking at it. All but the d4 roll well, but d4 are usually erratic. The truncated points on it help make it roll more consistently, but its light weight makes it a wash. If it had some heft, it would probably be a superior d4 to roll. The d10 is a very solid but rather small die, and the d20 is a bit larger than expected. The truncated d4 and the d6 could have stood to be ever so slightly larger. All in all, I am very pleased with the dice... this is just me playing arm-chair designer.

I am toying with the idea of scrubbing out the oxidization from the number panels and enameling them, so it comes up just shy of flush with the raised face of the number and frame... I will probably experiment with some regular model paint first, just to see what colors I might like. No hurries, just one more thing to distract.

Pentimo Photo

Pentimoes, not rendered!

I finally took a picture of the sample cut pentimoes. My design tweaks are going to be great, and the depth of the etched pips and dividers are going to be slightly deeper too. This will allow me to fill those features with paint and hit the wood with light sandpaper to take off any over-paint, then I can stain and seal them. 

I am thinking I am going to use an espresso or ebony stain, and paint the pips with a white acrylic. The dark stain will match the burned thru-cuts on the edges.

I am going to hold out on ordering those until there is another good sale, so I expect to get them on a 'Dads and Grads' sale in a few months.

Pentimo design changes

Black Pentimo with no dividers (rendered)

In the interest of refining the aesthetic and lowering the 'making' cost, in terms of laser burn time, I filtered off the dividers between the facets on the Pentimoes.

I am pleased with the appearance of the 'refined' tiles. The pips are sized and arranged so that the dividers were unnecessary, and removing them makes sense.

Unfortunately, removing the dividers did not significantly lower cost (just a few cents per tile). It turns out that laser etching is a fairly affordable process relative to thru-cutting. With 104 tiles and the assorted chad created by so many 'irregular' cuts, there isn't much to be done to minimize cost on the making front. I could remove the center hole and trim around 5-10% of  the cuts and cost, but I consider the hole a critical part of the design; several of my game concepts for Pentimoes actually need a thru-hole.

For now, I am going to maintain both versions and choose one when I am ready to drop the dime.

Ponoko para Pentimoes

Cherry Laminate Pentimo (render)

I have tweaked my laser cutting patterns a bit and resubmitted my Pentimo design to Ponoko so I can order a complete set. I am holding out for now though: At about $3.50 each for thin wood dominoes, that makes a complete set (51) a bit rich for me to spring for on a whim. I will need to sweet talk myself into it.

Black Plastic Pentimo (render)

I have also worked out a similar set in a thicker 9mm black plastic at just over $5 each. Even more interesting, to my sense of aesthetic at least, are the sets I designed that are etched on a 4.5mm plastic, with decorative backs and pipped faces, so they can be bonded together to create Pentimoes with decorative backs that are about 9mm thick too. These also run just over $5 for each completed domino, but require assembly.