General Update - 1st Half of 2023

Hello all!

It's been a while since I used this medium to communicate with the community (I'm primarily haunting the Discord these days, with a smattering of Instagram (@rabbitboy84) crafting updates). 

I thought that this halfway point of the year would be a good time to dust off my keyboard and get to it. Not that my keyboard is actually dusty since I have been pecking away at it all year while working on Mastering Tak Level II, my intermediate guide. I am in the proofing stages now -- writing is done, cover art is finalized, and copyrighting is in progress. I will update the community when it goes live in another month or so.

Quite the size difference between I and II

That's one rather large iron that I have in the fire, but I've still been trying to get smaller projects/objectives accomplished along the way. Besides the general US Tak Association administrative duties and Beginner Tournaments, I am getting ready to represent Tak at GenCon in August. We are running 12 events this year and adapting our format slightly based on feedback and observations from years past. I highly encourage anyone reading this to attend this convention -- GenCon is an incredible experience!

For GenCon prizes, in addition to our USTA coins, Playtak stickers, and commercial sets provided by Greater than Games, I have been out in the garage making some capstones. 

Our new playtak.com logo on a swag sticker.

This challenge coin was delayed and missed GenCon last year, but will be a hefty piece of swag for tournament participants this year.

I got a lathe for Christmas and have finally gotten it out of the box and spinning. Turning wood and wood/resin is surprisingly relaxing -- I only have three turnings under my belt at this point, but I can see this becoming an important part of my future creations.

Maple and Purpleheart in the classic style.

"Water" - carved and turned olivewood, oil paint, and resin.

Although the lathe is awesome, it just cannot match some of the other methods that I use. Here are the non-turned capstones for GenCon:

The companion to the last shown capstone ("Water"), this is "Fire"- carved ebony with oil paint and resin.

And here they are together, steaming up the board.

"Cat and Mouse" - carved soapstone. These need final details and polish, but they are almost there.

These were to be a set called "Epic Fail" which was an attempt to capture the point of failure of a steel cable and a fuse...but the resin failed to cure. So they lived up to their name :)
I may or may not have the time to redo these in time for GenCon. If I do not get them in time, I will probably remake for a future tournament of some sort later this year.

Those are what I have so far for GenCon but if we walk back in time to earlier this year, I created these for the Intermediate Open Tournament:

"Sci-fi" - suspended objects in resin. These are some of my favorite resin ones to date.
 

As you rotate them, the scenes and colors change due to the layout of the facets and layers.

"Kilvin's Lamps #2" - copper, paint, glass, and steampunk bits.

And they light up!

That's been my Tak year so far on the crafting side of things. Stay tuned for updates. I'm not the most consistent, but hopefully what I do put out is worth taking a minute to browse :)

Thanks for reading, and happy Takking!

If you have any questions, feel free to find me on the Discord or Reddit (rabbitboy84) or shoot me an email (bill.leighton1@gmail.com).