Why I Love Prototype Runs and Helping Keyboard Designers
The Migra TKL Prototype by Thebloodyez “This is my keyboard. There are many like it, but this one is mine.” - William H. Rupertus. In another life, if Major General William H. Rupertus, the Marine who coined the United States Marine Creed, had been a keyboard enthusiast, we might've gotten this line instead. All joking aside, this has been an article that I’ve wanted to write for quite some time. There are many reasons why we love the keyboard hobby, and today, I wanted to introduce you to one of mine—prototype keyboards and helping keyboard designers by joining prototype runs. Now, it’s not risk-free, and one should weigh the pros and cons of joining a prototype run, so I encourage you to pay attention to the disclaimer portion of this article. I know that there are prototype runs for keycaps, switches, and other cool things in our keyboard hobby, but for this article, I’ll be focusing only on keyboards. Also, please know that not every prototype run will be handled...
Dec 31, 2024
There are four symbols of the holiday: The Moon, The Moon Cake, The Rabbit Moon and The Lion Dance.
Our childhood is filled with the memories of Mid-Autumn Festival. It inspires us to design and handcraft Mid-Autumn festival themes.
First, we worked with paper and pencil to draw the concept, then is tool and clay to make the prototype. Then cast the first keycap with resin, silicon. All of the keycap (except the moon cake) is hand painted, pieces by pieces.
The Moon Cake, always play an essential role in the Mid-Autumn Festival as a requisite treat. As a grown-up, we eat it together with family and friend.
The Lion Dance express joy, happiness and good luck. The Lion Dance also plays an important role in the consecration. We are not a great dancer like those who control the lion, but we can always get ourself a Lion head to celebrate the festival. Now we make a keycap with a shape of Lion's head.
The Moon Rabbit is a simple of the Festival as well, they live on the moon and appear in many folktales.
And lastly, under The Moon, we celebrate the festival with friends and family.
To celebrate with mechanical community, we create some artwork of the Keycap with the Mid-Autumn Festival themes. The model for photo shoots was made with paper, and Japan clay then paint it with brush and oil paint.