September 26th, 2011

Well there’s a lot going on right now, but I don’t wouldn’t say I have a full “Life Update” worthy posting.

I finished out the Gears of War truck

Because the area I live in has some... charm... I've been driving the truck to work so that the paintjob wouldnt get vandalized before the event (I fully expect for it to get destroyed now that the event is over).

But tragedy struck in the form of the exhaust system falling off on the way home!

You can't make this up!

I wanted to make some more goodies for the event, but I had to squander that time in a rush job to the exhaust... which turned out well!

Instead of putting a new system on it with a muffler, I made a new exhaust system with glass packs!

Dear Lord... had I of known it would sound this great, I would have planned on doing this in the first place!

While it sucks that this popped up on me literally in the final hours, I'm grateful to have the ability to repair it in short order, and I had it finished with 3 hours to spare before the launch!

I stopped by another GameStop and dropped off some goodies for them to give away, and then headed to the West Saint Paul location for our launch event which I think turned out AWESOME!

I met a lot of really great people, awesome gamers, good times!

One of the people I met was a very animated guy named Johnni Riddlin who was Vlogging the event.
I bought the Gears of War console, however a guy in line bought the awesome one with the statue (I'm almost sad I didn't get this one), and he was kind enough to open it up for a bunch of us who were very very eager to see it!


Now I didn't know you could order it, or that they even made it... but two people got the Lancer, and one of them was kind enough to show it to us


I was surprised how light this thing was... it's a plastic shell but painted cool.

I suppose it is for a wall... but the sad thing is, holding it... I KNOW I could build one with a functioning gun.
After I dropped off my buddy Jay, me and my wife played GOW 3 on the new console all night... which is why I'm a little late getting this update up!

Much like Dragon Age II and Portal II, you can expect to see more Gears of War graphics in the future as we play the game.
So why not get the ball rolling now??

Yes, I took time away from the pure win and awesome that is GOW 3 to make my first decal design in what I hope to be just one in a long line.

...and much like my other designs, this is how I did it!
I started with a square

I had to add in a spacer

Next a few color blocks


now I need to onion skin it and add in some more reference lines

I know it's a bit confusing to look at, but to me it makes sense... I see the final image already, now to show it to you!
The color blocks turn into solid blocks


Then to remove the color, trim up the lines a bit

and I present to you the first Gears of War 3 decal straight from the game!

As we play though, there will be more added!
If you want to see the final shots of the truck you can go here

Now for the non-truck related, yes it’s mostly about Nerdfitti since that’s been my focus.

As many of you know I’ve wanted to make shirts for a while, and as some of you know I’ve started making my “Ox” shirts, haven’t sold a single one, but you know hey, they’re weird.

Last night I bought the last piece of equipment I’ll need to make heat transfer shirts, so I’ll be able to sell one off shirts in that method.

The last part is my press, the thing that I keep piddling with and have been building for around year.

At first I was making it out of wood, until boards snapped while trying to do anything.

Not willing to take failure, I bought a welder and some junk and I’ve been making it into a dream.

That dream is almost here, the last big hurdle was jumped this week


All I have to do is get the armatures in place and it’s done.

I have armatures from an actual screen printing press, sure they’re older than dirt but they function, I tested them out last night.

I’ll have to learn UV exposure, finish out my UV cabinet that I’ve already built and get a heater/dryer and that’s it… I can then screen print!

The press will be done probably this week, I’m going to make it single color for now with the option to up the ante a bit later.

The base you’re looking at is a fully functional 4 station, with the ability to go up to 6 colors, I only have the armatures for 3 colors right now, but I’m cruising Craigslist for more junk and I’m hopeful that I can find some more parts.

The very cool part is that I’ll have no overhead, this is all paid for so if I don’t sell a single shirt, it wont hurt me one bit.

So this is what I’ve been doing, what have you been up to?