SNESp and a discussion in aesthetics

Phone · Post by **Phone** » Sat Nov 05, 2005 9:18 pm

That is my SNESp. I followed Ben Heckendorn's design, and I even bought his kit. Why? Because I wanted my SNESp to look good so I can have a reason to be proud. Did I design it? No. But it still looks "kickin' rad". This isn't a "look at me play Kirby Superstar and brag about how much cleaner my SNESp looks than other ones", no, it's a valid argument: be proud of what you make.

I didn't follow Mr. Heckendorn's instructions to the tooth and nail and I made my own modifications along the way to improve the design. My SNESp is about 80% complete; it's done, but there's still way more room for improvement. I have several more tasks to complete, and my SNESp will be 100% within a month or two.

Now, for the dicussion part!

I was browsing this forum a while back, and I came upon Turbo Tax 1.0's SNESp. My friends saw it, too. We all had the same reaction: "Wow, what a freakin' piece." Plaster case from doom. I respect the technical aspect of his SNESp, but holy crap I was ashamed of it.

Function will always outweigh form. Does Turbo Tax 1.0's SNESp a portable SNES? Yes. Is it pretty? Haha.

When dealing with aesthetics, it is easier to convience people of the technical aspect if it looks pretty. I'm not saying that everybody's SNESp should look perfect, but it should look presentable and not like a pile of melted plastic. While pride is something you really shouldn't be looking for, it's a nice result of your hardwork. "Beauty is defined in the eye of the beholder" is a load of crap; we all know that beauty is defined by an arbitrary value that has been decided by a mass of people who are experts anything but beauty.

Don't reinvent the wheel. Don't make it look like a PSP. Don't make it look ugly on purpose. Anybody's SNESp is going to be bulky, but try to show off it's curves and cool aspects.

Now, I asked to rag on Turbo Tax 1.0 beforehand, but I do have to hand it to him for his portable Gamecube. He learned from his SNESp, and I'm quite impressed by his GCp case.

Everything is not perfect, but, for the love of society and respect for Mr. Heckendorn, make your portables look presentable. Nobody likes the looks of Mr. Play-Doh case.

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I'll post more about my SNESp later. Here's a related directory of some of the progress of my SNESp with weird pictures of myself to boot.

Sorry, these pictures were taken on my sister's crappy HP APS digital camera and my dad's in Alaska and has the Kodak superzoom. The first picture was taken using my girlfriend's superzoom without my notice. Better pictures are to come at a later date.[/url]

daguuy · Post by **daguuy** » Sat Nov 05, 2005 9:34 pm

hmmm. that's a good point, i'll try to make my N64p look better than i was planning on

nickerous · Post by **nickerous** » Sat Nov 05, 2005 9:42 pm

You know, I don't post on here much at all. I am in the planning stages of my SNESp. I'm not going to win any beauty contests with the case design of my SNESp, but I'm not going to spend extra money on a kit just to make the case pretty. Every portable on here is awesome because it works! I find this very ironic that a guy who paid for his case instead of making it himself, is telling people not to frankenstein their case. It's theirs! Not yours. You want to pay for yours...fine, but don't tell other people to pretty up their case when you didn't even make yours.

Phone · Post by **Phone** » Sat Nov 05, 2005 9:49 pm

I may sound hypocritical, but I'm actually not.

Case construction, even with some of the plates already made, was still a difficult task. I made it clear that I'm not stepping on a soapbox and spewwing crap.

Sure, I didn't make the front plate, backplate, and battery risers; however, I had to assemble all of these parts. All it did was speed up the process by about 3 hours, and gave it a good look. My next door neighbor has a mill; I could have used that.

bioniclebert · Post by **bioniclebert** » Sat Nov 05, 2005 9:49 pm

nickerous wrote:You know, I don't post on here much at all. I am in the planning stages of my SNESp. I'm not going to win any beauty contests with the case design of my SNESp, but I'm not going to spend extra money on a kit just to make the case pretty. Every portable on here is awesome because it works! I find this very ironic that a guy who paid for his case instead of making it himself, is telling people not to frankenstein their case. It's theirs! Not yours. You want to pay for yours...fine, but don't tell other people to pretty up their case when you didn't even make yours.

good point. I am pretty bad at casework cause face it. I cant vacuum form, I have no plastic to mold, and I cant really make things look perfect. But I shure can make something work. so this is a good point!

If you cant make a good case, and care about the appearence, get some help to make a nice neat one. Case work makes up a large part of the portable! dont make it the aspect you look at the least!

Phone · Post by **Phone** » Sat Nov 05, 2005 9:53 pm

I misspoke.

The point isn't to make the coolest case ever that looks fantastic and will get you ladies.

Think about the grander scheme of things: Mr. Heckendorn got on G4TV and that brought some expected traffic. While I am not a demographic taker for G4TV, but I think it's safe to assume that they aren't the brightest bulb in the package. They come to the forums and see some horrid-looking cases and automatically assume "Oh, just another internet celebrity with a following that is clueless."

I respect almost anybody on the forums. I can greatly appreciate the technical aspect of EVERYBODY'S portable project. Unfortunately, I cannot say the same about the appearance. Once again, to a community like this, it's Function vs Form, but in the "real world" it's Form vs Function.

Metroid fan · Post by **Metroid fan** » Sat Nov 05, 2005 10:03 pm

Ok ok so the case i'm making isn't that great looking but it's functional and it will get the job done... after I paint it and put on some of that cover plastic that is

Post by **Triton** » Sat Nov 05, 2005 10:29 pm

when its 100% done my snesP case will be a shining example of waht you can do with a lot of free time and some scrap plastic and hotglue( and bondo), right now it ISNT pretty, it has a nice shape and design but its cobbled together from bits of a plastic storage bin lid, it has some great cuves and a design that is awesome to just hold in your hands, my designs are always a "make it look good but be functional first" type thing.

Weebl · Post by **Weebl** » Sat Nov 05, 2005 11:02 pm

Phone wrote:All it did was speed up the process by about 3 hours, and gave it a good look.

You obviously haven't tried to carve engraving plastic with an exacto knife. Lately I've been working on the hand-made SNESp plates, and they took me for-freaking-ever. Maybe I'm too much of a perfectionist but it definitely took me more than 3 hours.

Yes, the case does play a major part in a portable. First off, those who really don't appreciate what we do will look at portables with bad cases and be critical. They don't care what it does, they don't appreciate how much work it takes. All they look at is appearances, which is what society has unfortunately chosen to emphasize as an important value. That being said, I think cases should look somewhat good, but as long as they please the owner, that's all that matters. Each person has their own idea of what looks good, so if the maker is happy, then we should all be happy. Besides, with some bad cases to start with, we can look back on our first portables and see how far we've come.

Darth Fett · Post by **Darth Fett** » Sat Nov 05, 2005 11:09 pm

I'm still saving my money up for a soldering iron

nos_slived · Post by **nos_slived** » Sat Nov 05, 2005 11:45 pm

Most people who don't have portables(which is most people), are fasinated by the fact that it is a portable, and don't really give a crap what it looks like. Some people don't have the money or proper resources to make a good case. Most members here are under 20, and some still aren't allowed to use microwave, which basically rules out the use of tools for making cases. It's all well and good to say that people should make their cases look good, but until you've made your own case, you don't have much room to talk. Don't give us that crap about just saving time by using one of Ben's kits, because it still isn't making the case yourself. That's like buying stuff from Ikea and saying that you built it, just because you used the pieces they gave you and followed the instructions. It doesn't matter if you cut an extra hole for wires in that Ikea desk, you still didn't make it, you just assembled it.

If you make a case for your portable, then you can post it, and prove me wrong, but until then you shouldn't be telling people that their cases are ugly.

Phone · Post by **Phone** » Sun Nov 06, 2005 12:40 am

Holy crap, this is completely derailing. I knew I shouldn't have introduced a topic of a higher caliber.

Listen, I asked Turbo Tax 1.0 for his permission. He agreed. I respect him and his work. This isn't a "haha, I have a superiority complex" thread, I wanted a serious discussion about cases and general good aesthetic form. Unfortunately, Trinton is the only one who actually caught on.

I'm not saying that you should go out and buy pre-made cases. I'm not saying that all of your work/cases is/are inferior. Get that preconceived notion out of your head.

What is the point of posting an ultimatum against me? "Since you didn't make your case, you can't post"? What type of crap is that? I fabricated the case. I didn't go through all of the steps of cutting out everything; however, that doesn't get rid of the fact that I built the case. Mr. Heckendorn doesn't send you a premade case, he sends you pieces; building the case is still involved.

This thread isn't about my perils of taking shortcuts and claiming other people's work is inferior.

THIS THREAD IS ABOUT SNES PORTABLE UNITS, THEIR CASES, AND THEORY ON AESTHETICS

MilkMonster · Post by **MilkMonster** » Sun Nov 06, 2005 1:25 am

I like frankencases it makes them more uniqe.

Turbo Tax 1.0 · Post by **Turbo Tax 1.0** » Sun Nov 06, 2005 9:04 am

that looks pretty good and almost makes me wish i bought a case but i am not gonna shell out the money for it and it has given me more experience
it looks real good though you did a good job

Post by **Sparkfist** » Sun Nov 06, 2005 9:35 am

Ok here's the low down.

We all love Ben's portables, and not just becuase he does great work on the portablizing part. He's a graphical designer with access to a CNC machine, we're not either so we made do. Yes there are many that wish we could make cases as presentable but for the most part the community here is more interensted in the hardware aspect. One way to take that is we'd get more interested in what you have under the hood then the outside.

Now becuase we dont have CNC machines its aloud us to develop some very interesting case, many of which I like very much. Frankenstein isnt pretty but you know what I dont think the person that melts plasitc together would be consered with that in the first place. Case-mod is by far the most impresive (to me) your take a console with all the standard stuff still in there and added a screen, controller and batteries, I dont think it too easy to cram all that in to an already small container. Tackle-box, get it done and play it, that's there pholosiphy for the most part. Lastly there is vacumme form, and as we all know its the way to make any shape you want.

They all have their pros and cons. But for the most part the case is secondary to whats inside.