I am a full blown dice goblin. Do I need 15 sets? No. Do I have 15 sets? Yes. Will I buy more? Absolutely.
Last fall I backed the Kraken kickstarter for some of their awesome looking ethereal dice. I hadn't ever purchased from them before but had heard good things, and despite most of the etheral pictures being renders (red flag number one, as those are not allowed per KS rules) they had released other sets of the same style that came out nicely. There was no reason to think the new sets wouldn't be the same.
This is the part where I tell you the short version is I sent my dice back, got a refund, and will never buy from them again. If you want the long version there is a super handy Twitter account called @DiceKraken that has been collecting all of the news from what has become a dumpster fire. Here's what I received (photographed under my studio lights, which honestly made them look better than they did in person) compared to what they advertised.
Last fall I backed the Kraken kickstarter for some of their awesome looking ethereal dice. I hadn't ever purchased from them before but had heard good things, and despite most of the etheral pictures being renders (red flag number one, as those are not allowed per KS rules) they had released other sets of the same style that came out nicely. There was no reason to think the new sets wouldn't be the same.
This is the part where I tell you the short version is I sent my dice back, got a refund, and will never buy from them again. If you want the long version there is a super handy Twitter account called @DiceKraken that has been collecting all of the news from what has become a dumpster fire. Here's what I received (photographed under my studio lights, which honestly made them look better than they did in person) compared to what they advertised.
 |  |
That's not the point of the story.
I'm a crafty person. If I see a thing that I like the idea of but not the execution, my immediate reaction is "can I make the thing?" These dice were no exception, but how do you make dice? This wasn't like other projects where I could look at it and dissect its pieces to figure out how to make it exactly or sub things in for good approximations. This was like looking at a baked cake and trying to figure out the recipe. So I did what any good millennial does and googled the every living hell out of it.
Making dice is one of those things that is easy to do but hard to be good at. Put a die in a cup, pour silicone on it, wait a while, pour resin in your new silicone mold you just made, wait a while, boom you just made your very own die. Maybe it has bubbles in it, or surface imperfections, or the exposed side of the die you didn't sand quite right, or the color you mixed in didn't behave the way you thought it would, so there are places to improve, but you made one.
And that's what I did.
I went full chemist on this and have a dedicated notebook full of my procedures, results, challenges, and next steps. I went from technically making something that counted as dice to creating sets that I was confident enough in to give to people in the space of about one month. I'm still experimenting, but happy with where I'm at and excited to have a new hobby.
I guess in the end I can take a little bit of sarcasm out of saying "thanks, Kraken!"
I'm a crafty person. If I see a thing that I like the idea of but not the execution, my immediate reaction is "can I make the thing?" These dice were no exception, but how do you make dice? This wasn't like other projects where I could look at it and dissect its pieces to figure out how to make it exactly or sub things in for good approximations. This was like looking at a baked cake and trying to figure out the recipe. So I did what any good millennial does and googled the every living hell out of it.
Making dice is one of those things that is easy to do but hard to be good at. Put a die in a cup, pour silicone on it, wait a while, pour resin in your new silicone mold you just made, wait a while, boom you just made your very own die. Maybe it has bubbles in it, or surface imperfections, or the exposed side of the die you didn't sand quite right, or the color you mixed in didn't behave the way you thought it would, so there are places to improve, but you made one.
And that's what I did.
I went full chemist on this and have a dedicated notebook full of my procedures, results, challenges, and next steps. I went from technically making something that counted as dice to creating sets that I was confident enough in to give to people in the space of about one month. I'm still experimenting, but happy with where I'm at and excited to have a new hobby.
I guess in the end I can take a little bit of sarcasm out of saying "thanks, Kraken!"
RSS Feed