Notes from my desk
Maker Journal
This is where I write down what I am working on. Not just the toys that came out well — mostly the ones that did not, and what I changed afterwards. If you have ever wondered what actually happens between a pencil sketch and a finished toy, it is all in here.
Written between homework and printingPrinting4 min read
When a print fails at 90%
Eight hours in, the last layer of a triceratops shifted about two millimetres and the whole head came out crooked. There is no fixing that — you scrape it off the plate and start again. I wrote down what I do in the ten minutes after a failure, because getting good at that part turned out to matter more than getting good at the printing.
Dream Lab7 min read
From a kid's drawing to a real toy
A drawing has no back. That is the first thing I hit every time a Dream Lab submission lands — the child has drawn the front of their creature and I have to decide what the other side looks like without inventing something they did not ask for. I walk through the whole process on a narwhal with a sparkly horn, from tracing the outline to the first test print.
Printing5 min read
Colours that print well, and ones that lie
Pale colours show off tiny details and every single flaw. Dark colours hide the flaws and swallow the detail with them. I tested the same octopus in all six of my colours to work out which ones are worth keeping on the shelf, and the results were not what I expected from looking at the spools.
Design5 min read
Why supports matter more than I thought
A 3D printer cannot print into thin air, so anything that overhangs needs a temporary scaffold underneath it that you snap off later. I used to add them everywhere out of fear. Now I design the toy so it barely needs them, which means less plastic in the bin and no scars where the supports were.
Behind the Scenes4 min read
Why I swapped 1% of profit for NZ$1 an order
My first plan was to give 1% of profits. Then I tried to explain it to a friend and realised nobody could check it without seeing my accounts. A flat NZ$1 an order is smaller to say and much harder to fudge — here's how I landed on it, and where the money actually goes.
Behind the Scenes6 min read
My notebook is the real workshop
Every toy in the shop started as a pencil sketch, and most of the sketches never make it to the printer. I went back through the notebook and pulled out the ideas that got rejected — a tug boat with far too many portholes, a robot with legs that could never balance — to show what the shop looks like from the other side.
That is everything so far
I write one of these whenever something interesting breaks, which is more often than you would think. New posts land every couple of weeks.
Want your drawing in here?
Send me your toy idea. Every month I pick one, model it, print it, and write up how it went.