This week on Maker Update: a miniature Addams family house, a light-up guitar, fabulous masks, a superstar costume, a coloring book vase, and chocolate Pikachu.

Guest host: Sophy Wong
https://sophywong.com/

++Show Notes [Maker Update #209]++

-=Project of the Week=-

The Addams Family Dollhouse by Ara Bentley
https://youtu.be/F6guChlumcs

-=News=-

Hackaday Remoticon Talks and Workshops Going up on Youtube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhBRQQJ5ox0&list=PL_tws4AXg7as8NoRkYLR2mOTzzoG5yQxw

-=More Projects=-

Glamourous Masks by Gertie
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rgz_rPeSn94

DIY Photography Station for Food Bloggers by Homemade Modern
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cghu0HUMnI

How to Make a Chocolate Pikachu by Alexandre Chappel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPWZu7I710Q

Lamp Made out of Trash by Laura Kampf
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hydYBk0CC20

DIY Smart glasses by Sam March
https://imgur.com/gallery/8lY43kp

3D Printed Guitar by Joshendy via Hackaday
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/14/illuminated-3d-printed-guitar-is-ready-to-rock/

Lady Gaga Halloween Costume by Techno Chic
https://www.instructables.com/Lady-Gaga-Cosplay-2020-VMAs-Halloween-Costume/
https://technochic.net/blogs/technochic-diy-projects/diy-lady-gaga-led-mask-from-the-2020-vmas?_pos=1&_sid=615e2222e&_ss=r

-=Channel Spotlight=-

SheProp YouTube Channel & Podcast
https://www.youtube.com/c/SheProp/videos

-=Tips & Tools=-

Coloring PLA 3D prints with alcohol-based markers by Geeky Faye Art
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvFcvzN1Kic

Tips for Projects in a Limited Workspace
https://youtu.be/jp2wZ4q68FQ

Creality CR-30 3D Print Mill in action – 3D Printing Nerd
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7pg-k28_RQ

5 DIY White Wash Finishes for Wood by Homemade Modern
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5LrV5-aAdg

Quick Look: Brother Scan and Cut – Make: Workshop
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uV3SXQkgQ8s

Getting Started with Sparkfun’s ALC Service – Shawn Hymel for DigiKey
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cc7S4nZpc3Q

How to adjust sewn mask patterns for better fit
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2VjruBJjFM

CoreGeek Gold Mandalorian Helmet
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ive71w8VS2E

-=Transcript=-

Open:

This week on Maker Update: a miniature mansion, a light-up guitar, fabulous masks, a superstar costume, a coloring book vase, and chocolate Pikachu.

Intro:

Hello Everyone! Welcome to Maker Update, I’m Sophy Wong, so happy to be back for another weekly roundup of creative projects and tips! I’ve definitely had some creative dry spells this year, but lately I’ve been making small things here and there, and it feels so good to get those creative juices flowing again. So let’s look at some inspiring projects and makers, starting with the project of the week:

Project of the Week:

Ara Bentley of Bentley House Minis, has been working on this project for 11 years: it’s an incredibly detailed dollhouse replica of The Addams Family mansion. Ara built the dollhouse by combining several kits with custom built portions, and then decorating and filling it with miniatures that she made and hand painted. Every little item in the house was a project in itself, from Pugsley to the peeling wallpaper. Ara used many different techniques in this massive build, from clay sculpting to 3D printing to papier-mâché, and her stellar painting and weathering bring it all to life. She absolutely nailed that aged, creepy, lived-in look. She’s been documenting the project along the way, and has a playlist for this project on her YouTube channel, which is a wonderful rabbit hole to dive down. It’s a stunning accomplishment, and the level of research and detail that went into this project is amazing. As a huge Addams Family fan, this project just makes me so happy!

News:

Time for a little news:

Hackaday’s Remoticon happened a couple of weekends ago, and it was a fantastic virtual conference full of workshops and inspiring talks. If you missed Remoticon, you’re in luck because Hackaday has started releasing recordings of the workshops on their YouTube channel, so keep a lookout as they get uploaded. And you can always head over to hackaday.io and view the project pages for the workshops to see the lesson plans, materials, and projects that people made. 

I took four great workshops at Remoticon, and I made a microphone, glowy origami, and my first ever circuit sculpture! Here’s the sculpture I made, it’s a firefly designed by Jiri Praus.

More Projects:

Let’s look at some more projects:

Josh Endy built this 3D printed guitar that lights up with LEDs as he plays. The body of the guitar is printed in white ABS, which makes a great diffuser for the embedded RGB LEDs. The hexagon pattern is a gorgeous, geometric surface design, and it cleverly hides the joins where the printed pieces of the guitar are bolted together. The guts of the guitar include a custom PCB for minimal wiring and clean audio, battery power, and a display screen with a single button for mode selection. Josh has a great video about the project on YouTube, and a detailed writeup on his blog.

Sam March made a pair of smart glasses that can give him turn-by-turn directions while he’s walking around town. LEDs embedded on each side of the frames alert him when it’s time to turn right or left. Sam also made a custom app in Swift to allow him to choose a destination on his phone, which can communicate to his smart glasses through Bluetooth. The whole project is super cool, but my favorite part might be the battery connection: Sam created custom, flexible PCBs for his glasses, with a clever wrap-around battery connection. Brilliant!

Gertie’s World is one of my favorite sources for vintage sewing projects and inspiration, and Gertie has a new tutorial up on YouTube for sewing glamorous face masks. The results are beautiful, and it’s a great way to practice using specialty fabrics and learn some couture sewing techniques on a smaller project. 

Over at Homemade Modern, Ben Uyeda made a photography station for food bloggers. It’s basically a table with an integrated rack for storing different background surfaces. This is a simple build that would be useful for any maker who does a lot of project photography. I could definitely use something like this.

Alex Chappel made some adorable low-poly Pikachus using 3D printing, vacuum forming and… chocolate! It’s a super fun project that gets… a little messy, but a little airbrushing at the end makes it look perfect. Working with chocolate looks pretty tricky, but it’s definitely something I’d like to try, and I learned a lot from watching Alex’s build.

Laura Kampf made a beautiful lamp out of a piece that she rescued from the trashpile. As always the finished piece is lovely, and she has great advice for all of us with this build: make something simple, and just enjoy the process.

And this has to be my favorite Halloween costume from this year: Natasha at TechnoChic made a super accurate cosplay of Lady Gaga from her recent performance at the VMAs, complete with holographic fabric bodysuit and animated LED mask. Natasha patterned the bodysuit from scratch, and wrote an excellent guide on how she did it over on Instructables. The LED mask uses 9 Dotstar LED matrices, and she has a build journal in-progress over on her blog, so definitely check that out.

Channel Spotlight:

Now I want to tell you about another great channel for makers: SheProp! SheProp celebrates female, non-binary, and transgender cosplayers, artists, and makers. They’re a fantastic and diverse resource for learning about costuming, character design, world building, and all things cosplay. Head over to their YouTube channel for artist interviews, panels, and more.

Tips and Tools:

Lots of cool tips and tools this week:

Faye at GeekyFayeArt discovered that alcohol markers can be used to hand color PLA 3D prints with a lovely, watercolor effect. She used the technique to color a vibrant rainbow on her coloring book vase, which is available on her Patreon.

Over at Tested, Adam Savage was asked about projects for small workspaces, and Adam recommends building a scale model of your home out of cardboard or foam core. It’s a great project that can be built just about anywhere, and only requires a few basic tools.

And there are tons of videos about sewing masks out there, but check out this one from Made With Wendy. Before sewing, Wendy explains how to properly adjust the pattern for a good fit, which is essential for both comfort and effectiveness.

Joel Telling, the 3D Printing Nerd, is testing out the new CR-30 Print Mill, from Creality and Naomi Wu. The Print Mill is an “infinite-Z” printer that is capable of printing very long prints or large quantity runs. It’s a super unique and innovative design, and I’m excited to see these popping up on my favorite 3D printing channels.

Ben Uyeda at Homemade Modern shared 5 different ways to add a white wash finish to wood. And if you’re looking for the ultimate gold paint, this might be it: Eric Jones, also known as CoreGeek, painted his latest resin Mandalorian helmet using Createx AutoAir Gold Plating.

Make: Workshop has a new demo video of the Brother ScanNCut machine, which looks like an awesome tool for making your own stickers in custom shapes. And right here on the Digikey channel, Shawn Hymel explains how to get started with SparkFun’s PCB assembly service called A La Carte.

Outro:

And that’s the update for this week, it was a big one, I know! There were so many cool projects to share. We’ll be off next week for Thanksgiving, but we’ll see you the week after with more inspiring projects and makers. Thanks so much for watching, see you again soon!