For 11 years I've been wanting to turn my 'intricadoodle' style of characters into a puzzle. At the time, I couldn't wrap my head around the production process. But now with having access to a laser, I gave it a shot as a gift for JibJab's CEO, Gregg Spiredellis.
Original sketch:
Making it vector in Illustrator: 
Under the laser:
Mounting the back:
This weekend was my 9th Startup Weekend and it never fails to re-energize! I was invited to mentor teams in helping them get the most out of the weekend, which can only be learned from experience. (It is indeed where Giant Thinkwell was birthed!)
Shortly after coming in on Saturday, I sat down to hear a pitch and was instantly visualizing its potential. Getting kids to learn through compelling gameplay. They called their app "DeathMath", where you go head to head with another player, represented as figures of history, and you kick each others asses through quickly solving math equations. The idea was intended to reach the kids that would rather engage in fun video games and not through boring academic content.
The story and aesthetic wrapper that was told around the initial prototype was one of battle and violence. It was clear that this was an idea that would make some people uneasy, which I happen to favor myself. They had a super talented team too that understood mobile, gaming, fun and education (what more could you ask for?!) A great designer from Ubermind, working on mobile experiences for large brands, as well as a developer from the Microsoft X-Box team, another developer from Teachstreet and of course the man with the idea and business guy, also from Teachstreet. The only thing I felt they were lacking was some flavorful avatars to represent the historical figures and especially in their brutalized state. I saw an opportunity to help them out and make some noise.
Check out the weekend demo at www.DeathMath.com - we'll definitely polish it up and get it native to the iPad with more avatars, more violence, and more academic development.
Oh, did I mention it was posted to Reddit, and within a couple of hours made the front page with almost 2,000 upvotes and 200 comments? Tons of great feedback and tons of great hating! (told you there'd be uneasiness...)
Here are some screenshots: (Design is Joe Shoop / Avatars by me)
Here was our awesome team:
And lastly, this is an extra little something to say thanks to Mike Arrington for not only coming out to support and judge Startup Weekend EDU, which meant a lot to the Seattle community, but also a thank-you from team DeathMath for showing enthusiasm and support during the demo. Thanks Mike!
Click to enlarge
Intfinity - 5ft canvas - Acrylic, oil based latex, spraypaint
If you live in and around Seattle/Kirkland, I highly suggest seeing this beast in person! There's so much going on in the background, which appears black in the image, plus all the hidden goodies. It is showing at Sureel through July.
As with most blogs, I've had a bit of a hiatus! This last month or so has been non-stop every single day. The last couple weekends has been one show after another after another, each week up til the wee hours prepping, cutting, printing, painting, etc. The overall success of the shows hasn't been immediately fruitful, but some amazing seeds have been planted! Now projects and opportunities are popping up all over. Anyways, lots of coooool stuff on the horizon, both from personal creative ventures and the toy development at Funko. My toy line "Nodniks" is starting to pour in! I've done about 32 characters in the Nodniks line and they are looking awesome. I'll definitely be posting more info on these soon.
I'll try to get back into the daily mix of things. I've just got to train myself to steal a few seconds from each day again.
Prisma marker, prisma colored pencil, ink, ps
