Intro
Holy Blajoly (pronounced “Bluh JOE lee)! Is it 2026 already?!
Well… no, but it is New Year’s Eve! I’m currently on vacation, and as much as I really wanted to post this before I headed out, I ran into an annoying MW bug that prevented me from uploading a thumbnail, which caused an error that told me I couldn’t upload the article without a thumbnail. Gross.
Accordingly, I’ll be “out of office,” so to speak, from December 24th until January 6th, gallivanting around the southern half of Japan, trying not to make a fool of myself as I meet my girlfriend's family for the first time.
So wish me luck! Oh, and, uh, Merry Christmas to all that celebrate it and a happy New Year for everyone reading this.
I’ve been a busy little bee this month! Work has been winding down as the second semester comes to a close, and the end-of-year parties have been winding down without incident…. I think. The middle school forgot to invite me to theirs, so I wasn’t in attendance.
I’ve been teaching lots of English, spreading the joys of Christmas, and I even ran 3 km at the kids’ yearly 持久走大会. I wish I could show you the pic of my big finish, where I earned whatever medal you get for 58th place of 59 participants. But, y’know, school confidentiality and all that. Also because I puked soon after.
But enough about me; what about you? Got any plans for the end of the year? Drop ‘em down in the comments down below!
And speaking about you–I’ve got some things that you–yes, you can download RIGHT NOW! So read on, and then go download them all!
Last Month’s Report
Pokemon TCGP Coins
If you’re not familiar, I adapt all the Coins that are released via the Pokemon Trading Card Game Pocket app into real-life versions you can use yourself! This month, you can enjoy a Psyduck, The Hoenn Region’s female protagonist May, and the ever Intimidate-ing Mega Gyarados! It really Breaks the Mold, if you know what I mean. Kalos’ female protag Serena came out a few days ago and is all ready for printing, but I unfortunately have run out of pink filament! A shame, since I’d been using that roll of Overture Professional Pink since before I bought my H2D. Once I get enough points to make a free-shipping order, it’ll be the first on the list!
Also, I’ve made the below coins as a special present for the administrator of the Pokemon Coin Fan website, a site dedicated to the history of the flip coins released alongside the eponymous cards of the Pokemon Trading Card Game. I definitely recommend giving it a look, and maybe donating if you find the information useful! I’ve personally traded with the guy in the past, and he’s super nice. These coins are based off of the logo to his site, and with his permission, I’ve uploaded them here.
Main Goal
Enjoy this hastily taken and poorly lit photograph of my completed Poke Ball shelf! Hooray! 🥳🎉🎉🎊🥳
My goal was to completely design, print out, and prepare for upload all 28 Balls that ever saw use in the mainline Pokemon games. And I should hope that the picture speaks for itself; I got them all done!
But despite them being finished… You can’t have them just yet.
If you are unaware, I have been working on something I have dubbed Project Kurt, whose aim is to create and upload YouTube videos to accompany my 3D prints of all 28 Poke Balls. The idea is that the videos will advertise the models, and the models will advertise the videos. Has it been successful? Not yet! But hopefully it will be! So click here to see what’s what, and share it with your friends!
I released the first vid way back in… hold on… oh, God, really? September 4, 2024? I have been slacking…
Anyway, I found out that just trying to edit interesting stuff onto my voiceover was less than interesting to me, so things slowed wayyy down as I pulled myself away to work on other, more interesting projects.
But then, I found an editor, and we’ve been working together to get them edited and out. So in order to keep up my end of the bargain, I resolved to finish everything that’s needed of me (recording the voiceover, supplemental videos, making the print thumbnail, etc, etc) this month, so I can be ready to upload and then give him the next one as soon as finishes whichever one he’s working on.
So Esentially, the Balls I had finished before the month, in order, are the Poke, Great, Cherish, Heavy, Master, Fast, Luxury, Ultra, Moon, Dusk, Beast, and Strange Balls, the ones I’ve uploaded this month, pictured below, are the Net and Lure Balls, and the remaining ones will be uploaded as my editor finishes their videos. Specifically, he finishes them, sends them to me for any comments, and if it’s satisfactory, I caption them and then immediately upload them, as I already have all of the files and descriptions pre-made (which was my goal for the month!).
In order, those are the Love, Dream, Park, Sport, Premier, Nest, Safari, Friend, Quick, Heal, Repeat, Level, Dive, and Timer Balls. I don’t know what the exact timetable will be for when those are released, but quite honestly, I kinda don’t care; they’ll come out eventually without much work on my part, barring any changes of plans. I’ll be mentioning which ones in any given month get uploaded next to the Pokemon Coin section.
All of these Balls can be found or will be find-able in this collection.
I do have to apologize, though; all of the videos before the last one tell you to comment which one you want me to make next, but given the order is now fixed, all that will accomplish is to have me tag you when I upload the one in question.
The Future of Project Kurt
Ok, so this technically brings Project Kurt to a close. Of course, you’re always welcome to try and make your own custom ball, but for now, I will be giving the whole Poke Ball shtick a rest. It was certainly fun while it lasted, and a lovely learning opportunity, but I think I’ve had my fill for now.
Granted, I’m convinced that banging all of this out was the right choice, but I learned that I really don’t like working on the same type of project many many times in a row like this. Might just be because of my ADHD nature, or maybe I just yearned to try out something new, but I found myself cutting a few corners here and there. The tear drops on the Friend Ball aren’t bumped out? Well, in the original artwork they weren’t, so that’s good enough. Some of the lines on the Quick Ball aren’t perfectly straight on the edges? Well, it’s not all that noticeable.
Nothing that makes any of them unprintable or anything like that, but maybe a few of them had room for improvement. Always interesting trying to negotiate deadlines with yourself; do you use another hour of your free time to make it better, or do you accept it for how it is and try to avoid burnout? No clear answer.
But speaking of spending time to improve designs, as for future plans for Poke Balls, I eventually want to make an even more robust design for them. There are a bunch of little complaints I have with how they are right now, but my biggest one is how potentially fragile it is.
The middle hinge is pretty small, and having it bend into place is worrisome. Also, just closing it normally without first pushing the two halves together causes it to snap the middle hinge off. So, if at all possible, I want to eventually redo the design to make it professional-grade-smooth. So, if and when I do that, I want to call upon the smarts of everyone that I can. If you’re interested in getting in on the action early, try printing this model out, and leaving a review with literally any and every complaint you can think of! I’ll be going there first to try and see what can be improved upon.
Stretch Goal/ImpossiGoal
So this month my secondary goals were to finish the first rough draft of (Stretch Goal) and then upload (ImpossiGoal) Durandal from Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade, pictured down below in the hands of that redhead. As I write this, I have not started. But from hereon out, it’s gonna be a day full of packing and then traveling the country, so I almost guarantee you that it won’t see any progress until I come back next year. So unfortunately, I essentially made 0 progress on these goals, but hey, they’re designed in such a way where that’s fine by me!
So what’s on the menu for next year?
Alright, first and foremost, I’m not so foolish to think that I’m in any position to make yearly goals or anything like that. Not that I’m necessarily so irresponsible that I couldn’t create and stick to a plan for an entire year, it’s just that I as of yet have a lot of unknowns down the line that could dramatically increase/decrease my ability to get stuff done.
Plus, if I’m going to be honest, I don’t want to commit myself to any projects that I might genuinely not want to continue at some point going forward. I saw that with Project Kurt; I ended up really not wanting to edit the videos, so I just kinda dropped it halfway.
And I hate doing things halfway.
Accordingly, my new year’s resolution is just “meet all of my Main Goals for each month.”
And the Next Monthly Goals are…?
Main Goal
No need to post the photo again, right? My Main Goal for this month is to release Durandal. I’ve taken time off until the 7th of January, so I’m only giving myself 3 weeks for this one, but I feel like uploading it along with its assembly video AND an Obscure Items YouTube short about it is doable. It’s not the most complicated of designs, so I *should* have plenty of time to do a satisfactory job.
…Ok, you get one more photo. Here’s Eliwood’s son Roy wielding it, conveniently holding it up so I can measure it against his height. Thanks, Roy!
Stretch Goal
Hmm… here’s the part where I have to actually look into this, now, don’t I?
Thinking… Thinking…
Here! How about this one?
This is a model technique I’ve seen a lot. I’m not sure exactly how it works, so my Stretch Goal is to figure out exactly how it’s done, and then to design and print a proof-of-concept. Nothing fancy, just like… a floating cube in a ring, or something. Just to prove that I can do it.
ImpossiGoal
My ImpossiGoal, then, will be to release a full-fledged model that incorporates this design into it. I’ll keep what it will be a secret, but I think true fans of the CarlThePumpkinMan lore will have heard of where I wanna take it. Just gotta follow if you’re interested!
Side Projects
Ok real quick I’ve been sitting on this project for a few months now. It is literally entirely modeled, but all I need to do to finish it is “checks print overview” print through 1.5 spools of white and 2.5 spools of yellow.
Yikes.
It’s from the game “Find Mii,” which was part of the built-in Streetpass Mii Plaza on the 3DS. The Sword it about 74 cm from the end of the handle to the tip, so…. Yeah. Anyone interested in it? I could upload it if I wanted to, but… yeah. From a financial perspective, it’d need to gather a lot of points to cover its costs, and that’s IF I don’t have any errors that I need to reprint.
Conclusion
Welp, that’s about it! I feel like I had another idea to throw on my bucket list, but oh well. I set up a personal list of all of the projects I wanna try out, so if I ever think of anything I’ll toss it on there. Then, I’ll keep posting it at the end of these newsletters, just if anyone wants to make any comments on what I might make in the future, be the suggestions or otherwise.
But for now, I’m signing off for 2025!
Hopefully I’ll make a good first impression on my girlfriend’s family when I meet them!
EDIT I REMEMBERED WHAT THE BUCKET LIST THING WAS
(it’s here)
Testing actual VG Boomerangs
Boomerangs have always interested me–I mean, how cool is a piece of wood with 0 moving parts that returns on its own after you throw it? I’m interested in designing a bunch of Boomerangs from Video Games (Specifically from the Zelda Series) and testing out how well they actually would fly if you threw them irl, if at all. Lemme know if you know of any games that have boomerangs in them.
Bucket List
This is just every idea from the last time put here again for recordkeeping. I’ll probably delete some if I have zero interest in doing them, but feel free to skim through this and see if anything catches your fancy. So here they are!
3D Modeling Poseable Models in Blender
I know Blender is more about animations and stuff, but I currently almost exclusively use it for importing one kind of filetype, and then exporting it as another. Since it certainly seems to be a powerful tool for handling meshes and stuff, I figure it’d be good to learn more about how it works, and to try and model some basic poseable figures in there. The prefecture I live in, Kagoshima, has a group of mascots that are all pigs–I think it’d be cool to create a base form for them, add bones onto it, pose it like they do in their promotional images, and then add their little accessories to make a cute little figurine set.
Gameripping and Crowdfunding
I’ve used The Models Resource to find models as reference material many times before, so I was considering repaying the favor and getting some models to add. The Magical Sword from Hyrule Warriors has always been in the back of my mind to make, but there are a couple problems.
No one ripped the sheath from the game. Both the sword and shield are there, but no sheath to put the blade in.
It would take a lot of filament. More than would be sustainable for a hobbyist such as myself.
For this challenge, I’d like to see if I can’t learn how to rip the model, so I can try and upload it myself. And to get the filament, I want to try out Maker World’s crowdfunding feature to see if I can’t scrape together enough to get the filament to properly test it and then print it out. It’s a pretty complicated model, as you can see here. It’d be a big undertaking by itself in order to try and adapt it.
Making Practical Mechanisms
So I have no idea what direction this would go, but have you ever worn a hard hat? You put it on, and there’s a knob in the back that tightens it down so it doesn’t fall off your noggin. I want to try making a headband that works like that, but has a mechanism in the front that lets you easily attach and detach a mask. How would that work out? Is PLA even bendy enough to make a reliable headband? I don’t know, but I found the patent for the ratchet, so…
Making More Rubber Band Hinges
Y’all remember Bakugan? I do. Really cool marble-like toys with a hidden magnet in ‘em which, when passed over a metal card, triggered the magnet which unlatched a bunch of springed hinges, transforming it into a little figure. Really crappy card game, super interesting concept. I wanna see if I can make one using rubber bands to power the hinges, similar to how my Poke Ball works.
Working with TPU
Fun fact: I’ve never printed in TPU. Ever. Sounds fun though. I’ve seen people make squeaky rubber duckies with TPU, and I want to try to do that myself. Except instead of a Duck, I want to make a Pig Ball, from the obscure PlayStation game Tomba! 2. This is the highest resolution photo I could find of it via a quick google search, which should tell you how rare it is.
Trying out Some Cosplay
Really small goal, but I want to try and make Zero’s Buster from Mega Man X3. I’ve got an idea to try and use straps that might make it relatively ergonomic and solid, but I also want to think of a way to make it easy to take on and off.
Electronics and API, maybe?
A while back I made a video (or 2… or 3…) in which I attempted to make disco lights for my twitch stream. I kinda succeeded, but the end product was really finicky, unreliable, and hard to set up. Basically, the gist of the thing was that I wanted to make a spinning ball with holes in it that projected shapes from an internal light onto my walls, in order to spice up my twitch stream. I was toying around with trying to make one from the maker’s supply, and if that worked out, I want to try and sync it up with my twitch stream so that it changes color if I get a follow, raid, sub, or something like that. That’d be gnarly. I’ve had a couple people tentatively offer to help, and I feel bad that I haven’t followed through…
The old one had (technically) remote control, RGB capability, and variable spinning speed somehow, but it’d take a lot of learning to figure out how to do it effectively and reliably.