Hello, I am Gortho!

Gortho may not have been living his best life, but Gortho was happy smashing stagecoaches in Faerun and taking gold, meats and other goodies. A few years ago Gortho tried to surprise some players and wizard touched Gortho in the head to make him run away. Gortho was very confused by this! How was wizard make/convince Gortho to do something Gortho didn’t want? As Gortho got back to being Gortho, Gortho decided that he needed to wizard good too. To learn how he could make others do things for Gortho or stop others from doing that to people who Gortho likes.

Gortho never did find that wizard, he “apparently” died, but Gortho met some of his friends that seem good. We drank many More Beers together and smashed some monsters along the way. They all know that I am Gortho, but also think they are Gortho? We went into the Savage Frontier for some code and fierce battles. We were just about to break the Frostweavers’ face open for killing little friend Pip when everything in Gortho’s world just stopped. All his friends too.

Suddenly, Gortho was warped someplace hot that smelled like bourbon and Gortho was being asked to go fast in cars that someone else named Jamie built for him. Gortho likes going fast! Gortho used all the power he could find and did win an award, but the stupid Devinses went faster and won more awards. Gortho does not like that or the Devins despite being tall like Gortho.

Since Gortho won award from very little build time and didn’t portal back to his friends, why not learn to make better cars that go even faster?

The Build

Gortho didn’t want to just build another do-it-Gorthoself-looking car. So Jamie agreed to help him build a nice cave garage and workshop where we can test and customize the fastest and shiniest of all cars. Jamie kept talking about portable workshops which….how do you carry a cave? Eventually he showed Gortho that with Sculpt-a-Mold, a wooden frame, and some other crafting ingredients we could make a bad-ass cave. The hardest thing for Gortho learn was thing called 3Dee modelling – it involved tinkering with cats, reading about things in verses or visiting factories. It also took a LONG TIME for the giant Saturn for Ultra box to convert goo into things. Gortho’s hammer would have been a lot faster.

With how long the garage/workshop took to put together, Gortho knew we needed some help. Gortho found a service, SqueegStaff, that provided some office goblins to help with logistics and Jamie found five or more services to do whatever the heck arrow diamond sticks is for the car body/frame. Keeping the thicc backend with the battery stack was key to making space for engine and magical elements Gortho wanted to build. Many chats with Jamie’s friend Leonardo helped to mock-up or render what they should look like before beginning to forge. We didn’t get everything built before we had leave to get a New Jersey Certified judge and go to the race track. But we packed up enough of Jamie’s tools along with the cave and cars that we figured we could get the rest done on site.

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  Gortho laughs at Jamie’s suggestion that this spinning blade device is portable, but it certainly made short work of cutting floor tiles to fit the new space.

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  Gortho felt like the dry fit of tile went well for the floor. Should any spills happen due to stupid Nat 1’s, Gortho could decide to clean the fuel/oil up or burn it off.

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  Smashing Scult-a-mold between tiles and on the walls was fun. Gortho just had to make sure he was swinging MC Warhammer to compact not destroy.

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  Doors are a nice-to-have at this point. But being able to walk between garage and office felt like a big step forward.

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  An even bigger step forward was the ability to poop! Gortho’s porcelain throne was a Kraken he had killed many years ago in a fierce battle and stuffed the remains.

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  Gortho explored many merchant shops for more better axles and wheels than Pinewood Derby defaults. This combo of came from ArrrSee airplanes.

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  Gortho can blender mix drinks but not Blender to mix 3D models. Heated discussions with SqueegStaff led to Jamie using Fiverr to get a good set of blueprints.

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  The racing car body was big. Jamie claims the Saturn For Ultra was very worth it. But if he thinks multiple hour prints is fast, he is a reason we only one one puny award last year.

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  Gortho thinks this is like upside down orc-making station. We watched a white wizard do similar while a Ring Lord complained about too few breakfasts.

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  With so much 3D print time Gortho had a chance while dropping a Kraken to re-read last years’ newspaper looking for race strategies.

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  Early in the build, that lead to lack of toilet paper. Gortho may be a bugbear but it’s been a long time since he sh*t in the woods.

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  Thankfully a nice MASHA officer would come by to inspect the workshop and bring us stacks of TP
  [Editor: Write Gortho safety citations]

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  At MASHA officer’s suggestion, SqueegStaff would put down a sign when mopping the office. Tripping hazard if you ask Gortho.

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  They also complained that all our fridge had was More Beer. Gortho was happy with this until Jamie pointed out that judges might want snacks.

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  Gortho tested some pre-built cars Jamie had. Gortho liked the colour of this one, but even tiny Gortho couldn’t fit. Until we convertabled it!

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  With core rooms complete, there was space behind office for Gortho’s secret wizard lab.

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  Gortho installed a safe lock into the sink to be hidden by a mirror. Well, Gortho planned to at least.

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  For now, Gortho could just pick up the sink+wall and slide it out of the way. Careful not to break the pipery. Again.

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  Gortho heard a video box talking about using Swaying Fangs in your design. We tried several layouts, but car jacks in the office was not good fit.

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  The bodywork was beautiful despite lacking paint. Now, it was series o’ time for car build. Gortho had the best engine ideas imaginable.

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  It started with a time portal turbocharger. Nobody in this earthly realm, except for one strange duck with hair understood portal tech.

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  The Ryobi battery stack would house the Probability Engine and it’s Lightning Flux Manifold over a Lava Fuel Reservoir. As long as they didn’t fall out mid-flight?

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  There was one painting mishap in the workshop which killed our 1st SqueegStaff. Gortho marked a death save eyes red in his honour.

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  When Gortho wasn’t working, Gortho was visualizing his victory and beating the Devins. Gortho built a trophy to help manifest that goal.

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  Gortho was primed for success and so was the Ryobi branding on the Green Racer thanks to their coin giftings. Now to get axle and tires on it to get onto the test track.

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  Jamie explained this “minor surgery” to Gortho several times about why it was series to lengthen Gortho’s arms and not the handle bars. WHAT?

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  If we were going to do this, Gortho needed a little pixie dust to take the edge off. Gortho nose what you’re thinking, but no hands made it hard.

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  JAMIE…WHERE ARE GORTHO’S ARMS?
  WHERE ARE MY ARMS JAMIE?
  GORTHO NEEDS ARMS TO DRIVE!!!

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  Gortho commissioned Leonardo to paint a picture of the battle at the beach where Gortho killed the Kraken. It was epic.

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  All the other racers are building tiny, to them, cars. Gortho wanted to try doing the same so made a scale model track.

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  Gortho’s anti-gravity suspension system didn’t quite work out for the car, but made a nice way to mount some ceiling plants.

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  Win at the track on Sunday, Sell cars on Monday.
  People won’t know where Gortho’s workshop is if there isn’t a clearly lit sign to guide them.

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  We didn’t quite get everything built before we had to leave for Bourbon country. But we’d be packing a good pit crew and kit to finish up on site.

The Box

A couple of weeks before Gortho racing team had to depart for the race track in Kentucky, some other coastly wizards totally contacted Gortho with an interest in making many copies of his garage. Why would Gortho want many garages when he doesn’t have so many cars yet? Anyways, the Jamie said Gortho could design a box to bring everything to the race. The more Gortho thought about it, the more it felt worth doing. Last year the Devins and everyone else just carried their cars to the track in their hands. It was underwhelming way. So we rolled up a box template from easypackmaker.com, mixed in some of our visioning/concept artwork from leonardo.ai, and went to The Printing Well to convert digital bits into paper. Jamie kept talking about some french boss guy who went skiing with a carpet tied to him as we were putting the last touches on this.

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  Before Gortho decided to build the office, his idea was for the travel box to be slightly larger than a RC car with plastic cover on the front.

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  But with two rooms, Gortho needed to build bigger. Gortho felt good about how spacious his office fit when ready for travel mode.

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  Gortho rolled really well for accuracy when it came to cutting the box panels out of posterboard

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  It was at this point that Gortho realized just how big of a print 3’x5′ is in order to get a full fold out without cut lines. Props to easypackmaker.com for the generator for this custom box type.

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  With a 3’x5′ full colour print, Gortho found whatever ways Gortho could to make use of print space. The smiling hex-a-gortho would go on the inside door.

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  Gortho found that creasing the inside of each fold line with the dull side of a knife did very well. Sharp edges from not sharp knife, how strange.

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  The template came within small amount of perfect when the top folded around to meet the back. Gortho math FTW!

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  A room with a view. The garage below is a little dark. Maybe we should add some lights in there?

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  Gortho designed many flags to promote your chance to win your own vanity license plate. Do you like the one he chose?

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  Gortho had sponsorship from Ryobi and More Beer and wanted to have their logos here. But, Gortho let Jamie put some of his own branding on as he did help Gortho guesses.

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  Digital Design: The top let people know that Gortho’s garage can produce some powerful vehicles.

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  Digital Design: The front showed that you could get your very own vanity Gortho license plate.

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  Digital Design: Gortho is jacked, jacked in (with More Beer) and ready to race!

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  Digital Design: The side which didn’t open showed all the stats Gortho worked hard to build into his race car and what came in the box.

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  Digital Design: Gortho was happiest with how the back of the box turned out, teasing up the features of car and garage.

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  Digital Design: Gortho doesn’t know the mustache man, but hearing him sing the story of Gortho is pretty cool.

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  Digital Design: Gortho didn’t understand a lot of this, but Jamie said it would be funny. The judges laughed and gave him high fives so Gortho guesses it was.

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  Gortho struggled to do this crossword for a very long time. Then Jamie told him that Rick would roll through and it’ll help with the judging.

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  Digital Design: Gortho designed a fire-y good flaming text for his vanity license plate.

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  Gortho-1 arrived to the race track in style! Kentucky only requires back-plates to be legal so Gortho-1 rolled around Kentucky for a week.

The Judging/Certification Process

While the judges were inspecting Gortho’s car and workshop with Jamie, Gortho was inspecting the track, jump/launch angle, and the ‘point obstacles’ that he was going to try to hit. Jamie recorded the judges workshop walkthrough and will post a shortened version of it here shortly.

The Race

While Gortho was racing, he saw several people taking photos, full and slo-mo videos of the inaugural Matt Murdock Classic race. Gortho has requested that the SqueegStaff contact them all to get copies that he can begin processing into smaller segments that can be uploaded here.

With some racers spending a lot of time on the track in the days ahead of the event dialing in their car, and others bringing an air of mystery with next to no practice, the air was crackling with as much energy as when Gortho swings MC Warhammer in battle to stack up lightning charges for hitting a BBE in the face.

When all the car-nage settled, feel free to take 1d4 psychic pun damage on that, everyone had a great time and won!

Best In Show

Gortho / Jamie

Podium Awards

1st Place – Steve
2nd Place – Gortho / Jamie
3rd Place – Thomas

Judges

Justin

Mario

Zack

Performance Awards

Mission Control – Chris
Artemis Program Award – Steve
UFO Award – Matt
Apollo 13 Award – Jackson
Mark Roper Award – Jesse
Anyone But Devin Award – Tall Devins
Clamp Champ Award – Medium Matthew Devins
Liftoff Award – Little Thomas Devins

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  All of Gortho’s competition battled fairly, fiercely and fantastically. Props to a Rough Deathstar for trying to push the definition of car, and the #1 Dad of Camping’s Bronco. Both are true artificers!

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  The Gortho Garage brought up to pit crew alley. With the velocity, angles of flight, and choice of standard resin for prints, several repairs were needed across 3 Gortho attempts a race-off against #1 Dad of Camping.

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  Gortho’s Ryobi Green Racer was the first to launch. The portal turbo charger produced so much force that cameras could not capture much more than the moment Gortho took flight.

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  The Probability Engine propelled Gortho into the heavens, and so far past progress the Devins could ever hope to achieve. Gortho didn’t always nail the landing, but we did enough to make it to a race-off for 1st place.

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  With #1 Camping Dad’s Bust-em-up Bronco having tied Gortho’s best first runs, Gortho had to do something special. Just as the next Gortho launched off the track he rolled a D20 ahead of him for initiative.

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  Gortho kept this strategy a secret so he was in as much suspense as the audience for how the dice would roll and how far it would. It came super close to 2 obstacles and landed inches away from the end-of-road center line padding.

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  The judges said that if Gortho had rolled a Nat 20 that might have earned him the 1st place win without the race-off, but unfortunately it came up as a 14. Still a very good roll for Gortho’s first outside of Faerun.

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  Gortho wanted to see his main competition from last year up-close for the Devins first run. Gortho saw his saw car soar down the track and then Devins look sore as it didn’t go much more.

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  The Devins looks happy, but Gortho knows Dad holding kids real trophies and his own Participation Award look when he sees it. An award named, “Anyone but Devin” that was won by a Devins? Highly sus!

The Finish Line

Gortho had a year to dream up car and cave workshop for it that blended fantasy elements of Faerun, futuristic elements of wherever here is, and whatever else Gortho or Jamie thought would lead a double you. However, the build really didn’t start until late June and became a “race-against-the-clock to get everything to the race on time” project. Gortho’s log, not the kind dropped into the kraken toilet, had it less than 30 mins before the judging slot that all of the lights, dice rollin’ Gortho drivers and accessories all came together. We may have taken some painting shortcuts to hit that target (dirty 20?) which will get cleaned up post-event. Despite that…

Gortho, and Jamie, are super happy with the finished result and that we brought back the Best In Show Award. In the end, racing against the tall Devins, little Devinses, the #1 Dad of camping and all the other fierce racers was an epic battle. I am Gortho and I look forward to defending my title next year!

BRING ON THE SIZZLE REEL PHOTOS!

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Hot on the heels of a project that created some moving memorabilia was a request to create some cool coasters and hot beverage mugs as part of a VIP customer referral program. The mugs bold red colour inside matches with the clients’ primary brand colour and contrasts nicely to the slightly rustic aesthetic to the natural wood finish of the coasters.

How it was made

How it was made

A few of the final steps in the process that didn’t get photographed (which were also the messiest ones):

• Sanding the epoxy to 320 grit for a matte effect vs the epoxy glossy shine. I went back and forth on different approaches where I might be able to finish the inside of the tray before gluing into the frame (easier to sand the corners, but less of a seal between epoxy / frame edges).
• Putting the final finish – Rubio Monocoat – on all parts of the frame, back and epoxy.

I had been playing DND for 3+ years, and making some projects that transitioned from in-game lore to reality, before I both had an interest and opportunity to step into the GM chair in starting in late 2023. The GM for my longest running campaign (as a player) had been struggling with work travel schedule-itis putting that game on temporary hiatus, and another friend group had recently finished a gateway game series in Massive Darkness 2 and was interested in something that kept decisions-with-dice but allowed for a little more improvisational adventure.

So while I was learning up on how to GM campaigns and deciding where I wanted to land on the Rule of Cool / Rules as Written spectrum, I also started to design a set of GM screens to keep things hidden from players and in easy reach for me. I haven’t found my comfort/balance yet between things on paper for reference on the magnetic strips vs a laptop + monitor for searchability, but every session I run it gets a little smoother. And let’s be honest, with a screen looking as sharp and shiny as this starting them in the face, knowing what I can usually come up with off the cuff if the players try to take things off the rails, are they really going to know how far in advance a part of an encounter was planned out? I need you to roll for an insight check to find out.

How it was made

I played this fun two-player abstract game at a Board Game Cafe a month or so ago and really enjoyed its mechanics.
Very simple components, jazzed up with wood and stones to justify the price. When we finished, I found myself thinking: “I could just ask Jamie if he could make that. ”  

Justin

I ended up building 5 sets out of Ebsian oak and walnut wood, white/black epoxy for the fill lines, and then a different set of custom meeple depending on the gift recipient. For friends/family, I put their first initial on the chest of the meeple. For the one shown here, a branded build for Rocket Genius, their Gravity Forms logo on the chest with a custom space helmet painted up reinforcing the white/black piece colours.

How was it made?

How was it received?

These 3 mugs are ones that I designed for my own aunts and uncles who enjoy Model T cars, golfing and quilting respectively. With a sublimation printer and heat press, any design that you come up with (full-colour, gradients, etc) that can fit on a ceramic mug that is sublimation-ready can be printed and pressed in just a few minutes.

How was it made?

The mitre corner walnut frame used 3-4 different router bits to build up an edge that was both decorative and had enough lip that it could be used to hold the hefty tray.

The 3D was based on this design file with changes through multiple apps to remove the doors, scale their thickness, and split into to fit in the resin build volume of my printer.

After attaching the trees to a thin plywood base with various UV and CA glues, I began to paint the trees and doors to have a wood/stone effect.

One dicey moment in this build was putting the base in the laser to etch the Doors of Durin. I test etched a scrap post-paint , but rework effort of failure now would be high.

Covering the laser etched portions in UV power coat paint (meant for fishing lures) had a really strong effect when the paint was charged by a UV LED flashlight.

With everything secured in #ClampChamp style, it was time to pour a thicc coat of clear Flowcast epoxy on. Plates and mugs won’t sit well on a tray that isn’t flat.

The epoxy small leaked into the back of the birch plywood. I decided to lean polishing up the back and did a full laser etch silhouette style. And more epoxy.

Much sanding later and the back was up to 320 grit smooth. The other dicey moment in this build was if the letters in the bottom etch would survive the epoxy+sanding.

In some ways, I find the back turned out to be better than the front. A mix of less is more and how those happy little accidents make each 1 of 1 project so memorable.

A table tale told in two parts

As much as the design of the table top was relying on concepts that I have done in past projects on a smaller scale, there were many things that I wasn’t quite sure would A) work at all, B) work well together along with some C) new to me parts of the process, that setting/limiting the scope to just the table top seemed sane. Between other projects Idealien Studios had committed to for customers, and how much of the workshop space that this took up during its’ build, I’m very happy with that choice.

I had a chance to use the table outside in the fall briefly, but didn’t get photos of it then and plan to keep it inside over the winter. That will give time to design / build the base for it based on experience rather than just imagination. You can look forward to more better pictures of it in Hex-A-Table Part 2 in spring of 2024.

How it was made

In addition to custom printing all of the volunteer and attendee shirts for the Maker Alliance camp event, I also brought my whole kit with me to give a workshop opportunity for all attendees to have a hand in making their own shirts. The 90-minute workshop started with talk + slideshow covering the digital design aspects of preparing screens. Then, with a little bit of Martha Stewart scheduling tactics, was able to provide hands on experience covering:

• How to add emulsion to your screens
• How to use UV light to transfer your design onto them
• How to register/align the screens onto the 4-colour press
• Applying the inks and how to screen press through
• Aligning your shirt on the platen and timings for heat
• Making your own shirt

The difference between watching a process happen on YouTube versus being able to try it for yourself.

One of the designs from camp applied to black cardstock made for a really nice album cover effect