I’ve used the laser to build all sorts of objects, including freestanding structures that fit together like jigsaw puzzles, and even props with internal electronics.

For this prop, I created a switch housing by “scribbling” the laser at a low power to create a partial well in a layer of acrylic. The switch fits in perfectly, and the assembly has very tight tolerances.

These paperclips are the first thing I ever designed for the laser.

Only a few of these have ever been made, out of very expensive laser plastic. (Although if you want your own, you can always make it from the design on Thingiverse.) In the intervening time I’ve learned how to optimize my laser time and do small runs of laser cut things.

I’ve also learned to make my work more beautiful.

One hundred of these laser cut, hand-twisted “drill bits” went out to attendees of StoryWorld 2011.

These laser cut leather bracelets were the parting gift for players of Reality Ends Here, an ARG for first year film students at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts.

Over 200 of them came out of our laser cutter in the course of two days.

Today, I’m working to create textile structures that can only be produced with a computer guided laser, including the lace around this cameo.

This piece is the Mask of Spirit, the fifth one in our series. It is wearing a veil of iridescent treated fabric and polymer “slats” bearing the names of powerful ideas, such as “the dream,” “the idea”, and “the memory”. The name of a key character, “The Wish,” had been scratched out, almost beyond recognition. Her eyes are covered with coins bearing nine important symbols from the first Chasing the Wish.

You can view more images of this mask on Unfiction, where Sylvia, the player who received it, chronicled her find.

The Mask of Knowledge was the first piece to be delivered. It tied into a game phase centered on the concept of knowledge, with the players helping to stop the demolition of Aglaura’s library. More and better photos can be found on Unfiction, from the mask’s current owner, Pixiestix.

I delivered the Mask of Technology myself on a hot summer day in Austin, Texas. It is a collage of different technological elements, with wires, gears, springs, keyboard keys, and a camera lens with a working shutter. A few days before the event, a video went out of the mask’s shutter opening and closing in morse code. The code revealed the time and location of the drop.

Unfictioneer RedHatty took the Mask of Technology home, while her conspirator CK came away with reproductions of the nine stones that served a key purpose in the first Chasing the Wish. The stones were given out as rewards for winning a code word game we played with many of the artists at the 23rd Street Artists Market.

You can read a detailed account of the event here.

The Mask of History was handed off to a player who never checked back with the community. It is still at large.

History is my least favorite but perhaps most meaningful of the masks. She wears a crown of columns to remind us of the heritage of artifacts. Her Jade tongue reminds us of oral history, and her eyes are weeping stars, to remind us of the legends we enshrine in the stars, and also that the whole of history is much older than us.

The Mask of Man was the final mask in our series. It is the simplest of the masks, with a papier mache base and a thin covering of polymer clay covering the inside of the mask to create a shallow “bowl.” If worn, the mask’s features would press up against one’s own. It also creates a weak “hollow face” illusion when viewed in certain contexts.

The Mask of Man was never recovered by the players – it was taken by the game’s villain and remains “at large” – on my office wall.

We built two giant canvases on which attendees could paint using five-foot paint brushes.

The brushes needed to be dipped in a paint bucket before they could apply color, and would run out of color over time. The two canvases also shared a mysterious connection – when you painted enough of a certain color on one canvas, that color would begin to disappear from the other canvas. The paint was a shared resource, and keeping the balance between the two was part of the challenge of the installation.

My contribution to the project were the five person-sized paint brushes used to interact with the canvases. I collaborated with an engineer to incorporate an electronics core into a cartoonishly large foam handle. All of the outer pieces were hand-carved and hand-assembled in our workshop at the makerspace.

Inkjet fabric, in silk or cotton, has been around for the better part of a decade.  It’s already well loved by quilters, but Sew By Numbers takes advantage of its versatility to create something more like papercraft for fabric.  It is also possible to make printable fabric sheets at home.

Sew By Numbers dolls are three-dimensional pieces of art that can be designed in their flat state and assembled even by novice seamsters.  Most of the assembly instructions are contained in the pattern’s seam allowances, meaning the doll can be assembled even if the text instructions, contained in the scrap areas of the print, are lost.

The process of designing new dolls is a pretty intuitive, and the template is freely available online under Creative Commons, so you can create your own and print them out for free.  The project has already gone collaborative, with four launch designs by myself, Jolie Pagel, and Aaron Ancheta.

I have also been collecting “sketch dolls” as I moved through alpha and beta testing. I took a bunch of these blank dolls to San Diego Comic Con, where they were drawn on by awesome artists, and gushed over by Kieran Culkin (who is totally dreamy.)

If you happen to create your own, do drop me a line!  Send me some photos of your doll, and I will gladly feature them on the Sew By Numbers site.

Sew By Numbers is still in very early development.  Expect to see more designs, development, variations, and ways to get your hands on these in the future.

These are some of the images I have captured for the Advocate’s front page. I have covered school board, P&Z, and city council meetings, and written articles on topics as deep and diverse as National Night Out, Miramar Developments’s lawsuit against the City of Coppell, the trend of emptying retail space, the proposed Cotton Belt Corridor, the City’s eminent domain disputes in Old Town Coppell, and local artist Brian Denham‘s comic creators class at the Coppell Public Library.

I also edit the work of other writers for every section of the paper, including our sports page, which covers school football, basketball, volleyball, and track, as well as numerous little league and club sports.

I serve as a supporting layout designer, and to date I have served as the primary layout designer for three issues of the paper.

I sculpted the original, and hand-cast each one in translucent resin.  They are hand-painted by myself and Micah Smith.  They measure about 2″ wide by 2.5″ tall, about the same size as a pocket watch.

But the robot was only half the project.  I set out to create a complete package that could go right onto store shelves.  The outer package exudes Victorian propriety, with its dark pinstripes and weathered cover.

The inside is a splash of colorful art, things to examine and explore.  Inside the box lid is a miniature poster, created by Fox Castillo, for the Ladies’ or Gentlemen’s Mechanical Companion.  The two are identical except for the chain attachments – LaMech hangs on a brass necklace, while GeMech is on a pocket watch chain.

On top of the robot is its users manual, which walks you through the basics of booting up your new friend, and warns you of the dangers he might pose, if allowed to go into Automaton Dementia.  The manual instructs us to always keep our special shutdown key handy, in case of a rogue robot emergency.

The manual is the tip of a story iceberg, most of which I hope to deliver through the manufacturer’s website.

Each manual is numbered.  To date (August 2010), 25 of these have been cast, and most of the first run are still available.