This is my first ever computer
modification where I designed and built the entire case from scratch,
this follow up mod took me over a year to
create. The sequel to my HellRaiser
Cenobite PC, my idea came from an 'Art Bank' that I had a long time
ago with an airplane floating in it, the following picture shows the
cube version of the same bank... which actually illustrates things
better.
I obsessed over how to
build it and make everything fit for months before I ever set pencil to
paper, I wanted to keep it as small as possible and still hide a monitor
and all the other computer bits inside. The original pencil sketch for the mod
design is shown below, the placement of some parts and final size differ
but the finished work still looks almost identical to the original idea
sketch.
The pencil sketch as a
design method worked fine for my last mod, but intelligently placing
parts inside a mannequin torso is simple compared to a ground up build
where precision is required. Enter Google SketchUp, it took twenty
minutes to learn it well enough to whip up the 3D design renders shown
below, it also helped me get the size down to eight inches cubed...
awesome software.
I will skip going into
any greater detail concerning the creation of this computer since there
is a six page work log covering
the start to finish build and there's also a three
minute video for those who don't care to read about it...
All four
sides of the finished
sculpture are shown below.
Here's a five minute video
which showcases some of the features and fine details of the Hellusion mod and
covers the stuff that just doesn't come across as well in pictures. It
concludes with a brief explanation of the illusion and a demonstration of the
"tool free" case removal and reassembly.
Next up is a shot of the
monitor side of the sculpture which houses the 6" TFT LCD with a red Matrix
Orbital 2x16 character VFD display above it, the remote control for the internal
lighting can also be seen in the lower right of the picture.
A close up of the
6" LCD follows... at 640x480 resolution it does a great job as a
secondary monitor that can run totally independent, meaning it can be
doing its' own thing while something else is being done on the primary
display monitor.
A close up of the magic
trick, it takes a keen eye to find the dividing lines within the
illusion... this was my intent and if it hadn't worked the whole idea
would have been scrapped. This project was built from the inside
out, the illusion was made first and everything else was just built around
the innermost object, the HellRaiser box.
If you are wondering
what type of hardware resides under the hood of the Hellusion mod then
this following list is for you.
And finally the front
page money shot of the finished computer mod up and running, hard to
believe but it looks even better in person.
