Time to move on from this project. Had some laughs, learned a few new skills, raised a little money for charity and achieved the primary goal of making a beer-goggles passable Dial of Destiny Prop. There are still plenty of prop details left to resolve and there are some creative and highly detailed props out in the wild from more talented folks on the horizon.
When this project started, I just wanted a thing and couldn’t find anyone from which to buy thing. Over the 3 months of effort, a few meta observations have come into focus.
Acts of pure creation are fun and talented people are amazing.
Just like walking through an arts and crafts festival, poking around the prop maker forums on the internet is a fascinating exercise. The amount of care, time, expense and level of detail that go into these efforts are impressive, if not intimidating. Just like the arcade and pinball restoration scene, actually.
In-group cliques w/ protectionist concerns, outsider-skepticism & fear of commoditization amongst prop builders
Early on, the only Dial for sale on the internet that I could find reference to was located on a private facebook group. A particular subreddit required a portfolio of related work prior to joining. Some forums were more open to outsiders than others. They have their own lexicon, their own set of taboos and their own [implied] blacklists of taboo-violators. There was an underlying theme in these communities of concern about Chinese scam sites like the one above and more generally the commodification of the work as hustle culture and collectibility sensibilities collide.
A narrative of a hyper-competitive, often mean-spirited and darker side of the Etsyverse that I wasn’t aware of formed. I guess it never occurred to me that Etsy sellers would be sniping at each other but they do. Paranoia around trying to maintain artificial scarcity fueled by fear of a diminishing or saturated market keep some of these folks up at night trolling forums in classic keyboard-commando fashion. Just like the arcade and pinball restoration scene, actually. I almost started an Etsy store to sell these things but decided against it. Anything that might invite drama and work opposite of my love for the franchise is a big no-thanks.
Although, zooming out a bit: There is comical irony in a bunch of prop nerds and artists building a recurring revenue stream from recreating replicas of actual Hollywood prop masters who were paid once for their work. Being so precious with their own copy of someone else’s’ original work while being aggressively protective of their own copycat coke formula.
methinks thou dost protest too much.
This, I think is a unique aspect of commercial art vendor circuit. A nugget of a thought that occurred to me walking through the Epcot Arts and Crafts festival watching vendors sell for a premium their own interpretations of other artists’ and animators’ work. I wonder if those original animators (many of whom were laid off a decade ago) are getting a cut of the licensing? You don’t have to hang around long to hear the vendor in one booth talking shit about the vendor from another booth. I guess capitalism isn’t a team sport.
Thinking on the protections that these artists try to mask their work with and all of the signs saying “no photos, please.” That’s ironic right? No photos of my copy of a thing that was derived from something that literally aired on ABC during the Wonderful World of Disney.
People are weird animals.
This is an abstraction of the AI conversation in the current Zeitgeist. If a drawing of a drawing is art, is a photo of a drawing still art? If you stare at enough art, it creep into your own creative output, just like the training data for generative models. These are complex topics for a blog about retro-nerd stuff, so.. I’ll leave it there for now.
Our princess is in another castle
Just my opinion: considering the box-office take of Indy 5 and how promotional budgets in the studios work, I don’t expect to see an official prop anytime soon. Hopefully I’m proven wrong.
Throughout this post and to this point in time, I made a prop that was “close enough” for my own purposes and with enough whiskey your mind will resolve it as accurate, even though it isn’t really accurate. The dimensions were a guess, constrained by build-volume. The glyphs were pixel-peeked from theme park photos and further extrapolated by astrological signs. The internal dimensions were resolved through relational geometry and natural constraints and the hidden internal details of the film prop are far more elaborate.
On the OCD scale, where 1 is a deformed pizza box and 10 is the film prop, this is a 7 by my estimate. Keep an eye out and I’m sure the real prop makers will eventually rise to the challenge.
December 2023: Getting Pulled Back In
I thought I was done! (again). I guess not! (Again)
Social Media. I should stay off of it. Around early December on one typical four-espresso morning waiting on a meeting, my phone vibrated with a social media message from across the Pond. Summarized as follows:
”I’m in [exotic place] (by standards of South Alabama, anyway) I’d like one of your props.. but there are two issues I’m concerned about. Layer Lines and Support Scars. “
In my little mental red flag push-pin map of places that I’d sent Dials, this particular locale spoke to me. I’m being vague here… on purpose. Just to highlight the innovation-motivation without calling attention to an individual in the Indy prop communities.
I know that I could make a Dial without layer lines and without support scars, I made plenty of them but it was hard work; a lot of sanding and post-processing of the parts, which drove the time (and price) up. But, since I took a break over the fall from making Dials, a few things didn’t set right with me about the model as I left it.
Issue: I wasn’t happy with the way the conversion process, particularly the danger of breaking the eyepiece part while unscrewing the compass mount. No one (but me) appears to have broken one but still, I wanted to improve this mount.
Proposed Solution: A slight redesign of the screw-plug to introduce a magnetic coupling. Working on my Johnny Five project, I’ve been experimenting with magnets to give some parts a natural resting position and to aide in disassembly and storage. Its something I saw Titan Ross do over at Titan toys on his smaller J5 builds to hold the arms into the shoulder sockets while still allowing rotation.
Issue: I wasn’t happy with the FDM print process. I mean, the bambu printers are great but the post-processing steps to add weight were cumbersome. When someone would buy a Dial from me, I added pour-channels and plugs to the Side A/B parts and filled them with a concrete-like mixture. The weight was good but the balance was off. Also, it was messy.
Proprosed Solution: (Read in Austin Powers voice) Resin, baby. Yeah.
(Resume normal internal monologue voice of George Carlin) In order to build a Prime Radiant, I finally picked up a resin printer. Then another. Then another. Then another. The full-sized / large Dial wouldn’t fit on my Elegoo Saturn 3 Ultra but does work out on an Elegoo Jupiter.
Issue: I know I was missing some details like: the edge ripples on the box and the lines on the viewfinder disc.
Proposed Solution: Adderall and design-focus-time.
Issue: I wasn’t happy with the organization of the project on printables. It was clutterd.
Proposed Solution: Declutter it while also adding additional build sizes. (200mm, 205mm, 210mm)
Mark 5
