Build in public, vol. 9

Usually when we hit the holidays, things slow down and everyone wants to cocoon and bed rot until New Years. That is also normally the case for me, but this year, for whatever reason, my slow down period was mid-November to about a week ago. I have recently gotten such a burst of energy that it feels like everything that was on my to do list is now finally getting done, and man it feels good!

What I'm working on

So I haven't done any designing this month... surprise surprise (no one is surprised). I did, however, go out for the night and I wore my pant waist adjusters! This is the first time I've used them for an extended period of time and they actually held up quite well. I did notice some things that I can improve about the design though. For example, the way it sits within the pants allows for part of it to rub up against the users skin and cause some slight irritation. This is a simple fix (imo) by sloping one of the legs down so that it sits flush with the top of the pants instead of raised. I'll try that out and see if it improves the discomfort, stay tuned!

Remarkably terrible artistic rendering of what I'm trying to articulate in the paragraph above

What I'm learning

I purchased some of my own filament (long overdue) to test out different materials and colours for my little designs. The first one I tested out was transparent PETG because transparent things are cool as hell. You know what wasn't cool as hell? The print quality 🫩. I had to do a lot of reddit searching to find ways to change the printer settings to get slightly better quality, and while it wasn't perfect, it was definitely better than when I had started. I think I should make a document that notes all these changes in it so when I inevitably forget the settings I used, I can reference my print bible. Great idea Madison.

All the filaments I bought to test with (pearl white, white, black, transparent)

Where I'm stuck

Last blog post I wrote about wanting to find AI tools to help me speed along the design process. I have since found a few for different areas of the design lifecycle, but I have yet to try anything out. I just find a website and go "oh that looks cool!", bookmark it, and come back to it approximately never. Sometimes writing these posts really makes me realize how much I'm dragging my feet on doing anything for MadiMakes and I'm not sure why. We are in peak introspective season so maybe I'll uncover some things...

Happy Chanukah, Merry Christmas, Happy New Years, and if there is anything else I missed, happy that too!

See you next time!