Block Dice Tower - Shard Of Depression

The Block Dice Tower, a very personal model and for sure different from my usual designs. Find the Story below.

Printing

• No supports 

• regular 0.2mm settings, reduced infill can help to save material

• if warping might be an issue a brim is recommended

Design

This tower is not made as a perfect dice tower, this is made for its look and aesthetics. It's base function is given, but the design itself was the main part of creation. Originally as a test for a wood dice tower concept.

Besides the raw appearance, I made 3 versions: Plain with no other features then the tower itself, regular with a little top tray to hold you dice and a trayed version with an integrated tray at the bottom.

Additionally there is the Cheese Block Dice Tower as a fun side project.

And it comes with 3 tray variants. V1 is the favorite, small in footprint and a nice place to hold your favorite die. Tray V1 and V3 are able to hold the tower in two directions, so you can decide wich side the dice will roll into and use the other side for storage.

Usage

As mentioned before, this tower is unusual in design and functionality. While I normally look for the best function, this tower has some flaws to consider: As for the open sides, it can happen that dice can throw eachother out. To prevent this, roll dice singlewise and not parallel. Also small dice (smaller then standard RPG dice) tend to bounce out on the side holes. 

Story

In the last year I had a major breakdown and lots of issues to deal with. I felt into depression and it took a while to come back. I'm still struggling and I was also struggling if I want to share this with you or not. It's and ongoing project that is not done yet, but it helped me to recover and find a way back to my creativity. But it also showed me a completly different version of myself and how I work.

While I usually tend to work from the inside out, starting with an idea for a rolling path and building the tower around it, or finding a nice way to store and roll your dice and work from that, this time it was different. The idea of simple holes in a block was not new, but in the past I quickly threw that over board. It was the idea to use a big drill and mill a path for the dice into some wood and cover it with sheets of plexiglas or so.

Before therapy I was creativly burned out. No motivation, nearly no ideas running around my mind and way to much issues to deal with. But during therapy and some time to calm down and think about myself, this idea came to me over night. First I thought, nothing to complicated that kept me working and helping me to clear my headspace. But I found more in it. The tower felt like a reflexion of myself. I was a worn down lump, no fassade, no face, open, vulnurable and barely functioning. I see some of that in this design, no patterns nor decorations on the outside, not beeing able to handle multiple dice (multiple tasks), open and prone to actions from the outside and no other functionality. 

I can tell you, if you feel similar, try to find help. Don't let this eat you up. Find what is good for you and grab it. I will continue to work on this tower and if I end up with a house full of drilled wood blocks, I'm fine, I enjoyed making them and it kept me sane.

It started as a test to see of that concept is at all working and the dice don't fly out all the time. I made not only printed versions, there is gipsum, concrete, several woods and there might be more to come. 

Disclaimer: The dice in the pictures are my own creation, if you're interested in that, check out my Instagram profile and contact me there. Same for print on demand. I don't have a shop and do commissions and print on demand as my time allows.