Week 10 - Hiatus

16 weeks remain.

Unfortuntely, I had to take a bit of a hiatus the past few weeks due to rising work obligations, but I do have a few updates on the project.

First, the handheld smoke grenade is no longer in consideration. After doing some research, I could not find any non-oil based portable smoke machines. My assumption is that oil-based fog takes considerably less energy to vaporize compared to a mostly glycerol based solution, and my concern is that by moving forward with an oil-based fog, the oil will infuse into the silks. I do not wish to take that risk, so instead of a fog grenade, my duet partner and I will just enter the scene with a fog machine.

I have made some progress with concepting the curtain drop mechanism, but have not designed any models yet. My plan on how to mount the mechanism has also changed, as I will be using compatible clamps from Global Truss. These clamps are specifically designed for use with the truss system at the studio.

I have made significant progress on the tumbler, though, and am now in the process of printing the prototype design and ordering parts. One of the design challenges with the tumbler is that it is mostly 3D-printed. The additive manufacturing means that I need to be cognizant of which axis the parts will print on, and that the axis I choose has no significant overhangs that would cause stringing or poor layering. While supports can be printed to support overhangs, they don’t usually lead to clean prints for large surfaces and they take up additional time and material. In addition, the maximum dimensions my hobby 3D printer can support are 256cm x 256cm x 256 cm, which means for my confetti tumbler to span the length of a human, I need to design the sifter to be connectable in series.

Below is the current concept. Each sifter section is approximately the full 10cm height. To connect the sections together, I have designed a collar piece that will bolt to either end of the sifter. This collar piece also connects to the axle to ensure there is no droop between sifter sections as the length of the tumbler increases. This brought on the design challenged mentioned before - since the spokes are in the middle of the print, I would need a shelf of supports if I wanted to make the collar from one piece. Instead, I designed the collar to be one part that can mirror against itself, ensuring that the spokes always print on the bottom layer. Not shown in the image are the cap pieces I made, which are similar to the collar piece but with a solid side to ensure no confetti spills out from the side of the tumbler.

Another design element is the hinged opening. This will allow me to refill the tumbler without disassembling it.

What I still have to design is the mounting assembly for the truss, the motor and pulley assembly, and the electrical box and connections. I am also designing a tray that will fit under the hinged opening - this will hold the confetti first before falling on the sifter. The reason for this tray is that our act will be the last to go, and the trusses will be vibrating and shaking for each performance prior. The motion will cause the confetti to natural shift in the tumbler, and there is a chance some of it will fall through the sifting holes before the performance. The tray will, hopefully, maintain an element of surprise until our performance.

The delay has removed a large chunk of design opportunity, which shortens the timelines as follows:

1. The confetti tumbler needs to be fully designed by July 26th

2. The curtain drop mechanism needs to be fully designed by September 6th

3. Both mechanisms need to be tested by early October.

4. The cosplay props will only have roughly 7 weeks of time to design, print, and paint. Fortunately, with the popularity of arcane, it shouldn’t be too difficult to find accurate 3D models of the props.

5. The backdrop needs to be sewn and painted by early October.

All of the above is still doable. The project is still green and good to go!

Week 2 - Tumblr

Out of all the mechanisms I’m designing for the showcase, the confetti tumbler is definitely the easiest one. Trying to find reference images on google, however, is a different story. Searching for “confetti tumbler” leads to hundreds of images of travel coffee containers with confetti sides. Confetti Snow Machine yields better results for an idea of how this machine should look and work.

The mechanism itself is simple - imagine a flour sifter. You put some flour in the sifter, and even though the flour is smaller than the holes of the sifter, friction keeps (most of) the flour in place. When you shift the sifter back in force, that motion causes the flour to separate, and some of it will fall through the holes of the sifter. Confetti is a larger and less fluid medium, but the idea is the same - if you create a sifter with larger enough holes, eventually a pile of confetti will sift through those holes.

Designing a large sifter though is impractical, but the same principle can be done cylindrically. Get a container, drill a bunch of holes in it, put confetti inside, and rotate. The pile of confetti will fall over itself, and some of it will fall through the holes. Rotational motion is incredibly simple. Stick an axle through the cylinder, put a gear or pulley on the axle, run some chain or belting, and voila, you have a confetti tumbler.

So now that the simple stuff is out of the way, let’s complicate things. The tumbler needs to work with the confetti, and confetti isn’t one-size-fits-all. You can find variety of material, colors, sizes, and even shapes online. So if I design a tumbler and the confetti is too small, the confetti can pour out of the tumbler like liquid. If I design the holes too small, the confetti won’t flow. So the first step is to pick a type of confetti to base the design around. The song demands “hellfire,” and so I’m in the search for confetti that comes in multiple colors (reds, oranges, and yellows), will sparkle like fire, and is a consistent diameter for each color. Enter Amazon with their randomly generated brands. 15mm, metallic foil, and comes in multiple colors. This will be the confetti I will base the design around.

(I do have hesitancies around foil. Since it doesn’t crinkle as much as paper, it tends to stick on surfaces because it will rest flat against the surface. It can also stick to itself for the same reason. The initial design will be based around this, but in case it fails spectacularly, I found an option for 1.5cm paper confetti that comes in similar colors.)

Now that we have the confetti and size, the next step is to start thinking design. As mentioned, the idea of a confetti tumbler is a cylinder with holes drilled through it. But here’s the thing - cylinders are expensive. A 6” diameter polycarbonate tube is, as of writing, $57/foot. But you know what’s not expensive? 3D printing.

Rather than buy a large tube, I can just print a cylinder for the fraction of the cost. It won’t be perfect, but it doesn’t have to be perfect - it just needs to be functional. And that is what I was able to accomplish this week: I printed an almost-tube.

The almost-tube is a roughly 8” diameter extrusion, roughly also 8” tall, with holes of varying sizes along the height of it so I can test how the confetti flows out. The hole diameters start at 1.5cm, and goes up 0.05cm for each group, up until 1.65cm. The almost-tube is called an almost-tube because 1/4 of the tube is missing. This allows me to, if I so choose, put dividers in the the almost-tube and still be able to fill it from the side, therefore getting an accurate measurement of how much confetti is sifting out of each section over time.

After printing the almost-tube, I took some of the confetti and sifted through it manually (using a trusty cardboard box to catch most of the confetti). It wasn’t a perfect fit, but I did have a successful sifting. I noticed that the confetti did stick to some of the 1.5 and 1.55cm holes, so I will use the 1.6cm holes as a baseline for actual tumbler design.

All in all, the print was 178g of filament, and at roughly $20/kg, this came out to only $4 in print costs. Substantially cheaper than a real cylinder!

I plan to continue working on the tumbler for this upcoming week. My goal is to come up with a design that will make the tumbler more rigid, modular, and rotatable by a machine.

Week 1 - Project Background

Hellfire is one of the more badass names for a side project, wouldn’t you say? Sounds like something you’d hear in a war movie. This project is a lot sillier.

Arcane Season 2 began airing on November 9th, 2024. Episode 3 opened hard to a montage of Caitlyn and Vi, decked out in Hextech, with two other enforcers (and the traitor Maddie), storming the Zaun sewers in search of Jinx. The scene is meant to foreshadow Caitlyn’s descent into authoritarianism - the ventilation ducts were designed by her mother to purge the Gray (toxic smog) from the Underground, and Caitlyn weaponizes the humanitarian invention to search the depths while terrorizing any unfortunate soul that gets in the team’s way. The infiltration happens to the song “Hellfire,” and you quickly forget that Caitlyn is violating some fantasy version of the Geneva convention because the song is so damn catchy. It immediately went on my showcase playlist, and for months the idea on how to execute the song in a theatrically chaotic way has been rattling my brain.

This blog will go over the engineering and development for a series of props and theatrical devices that I’ll be making to recreate elements of the music video:

1. Caitlyn’s Gun, Vi’s Gloves, and the Enforcer Masks - although most of these will only be used briefly, they’re meant to set the scene on stage. My duet partner and I will enter from behind the curtain as if we’re infiltrating the stage - the only sources of light being the lenses of our masks and the glow of the hextech weapons on us.

2. Fog Machine in a Smoke Grenade - one of the lines in the refrain is, “pull the pin and watch it blow.” This is meant to be the first surprise of the show - the props we have on us will lay out the layer of smoke that’s meant to represent the Gray. There are already several handheld smoke machine in the market, so this is a simple task of converting one to fit in a prop and have it able to drop it from 20 feet up without it breaking.

3. The Kabuki Drop Machine - In the music video, Caitlyn stands in front of a series of wanted posters, each showing a sketch of Jinx. While I could begin the act by setting up a new backdrop, that’s boring and doesn’t add the element of chaos. When the first refrain hits, the kabuki drop will fly a new backdrop down.

4. The Hellfire - The final apparatus. At the end of the song when the refrain hits a second time, hellfire will rain on the stage. For safety, I can’t rain actual fire on the stage (pyrotechnics are definitely not allowed indoors for a space adorned with a bunch of fabric), so I’ll be designing the next best thing - a confetti tumbler.

So why make all these props? Confetti tumblers commercially available, and commissioning props be more time-efficient. While it’s possible to purchase a kabuki drop device or a confetti tumbler, neither would be custom-fit to the performance space, and nothing commercially available (as far as I’m aware) has the ability to sync with performance lighting routines, which is the unique aspect of the third and fourth prop I’ll be designing over the next six months. The major technical devices will sync with the studio’s hardware for light changes, ensuring that they trigger in sync with lights.

That’s the rough kick-off summary for this project. Will try to target weekly design status updates - lots to accomplish in a short time!