First steps into
the world of
artisan keycaps

2017, the three of us entered the world of artisan keycaps, a safe space to have fun after work. During this time, we took immediate inspirations from the outside world and tried to stay true to them.

Bull was our first step into this world. Details, realism and emotions were the main focus.

A short while later, as another way to have fun, not as detail-heavy yet cute concepts came, such as Pengun or Ninja Shito.

Creating a style
of our own

Not long after, such a hobbyist-approach no longer sufficed as an instrument to express ourselves.

As our own sense of artistics evolved, we also yearned for a higher level of intricacy in our designs. “Our creations on the board should be lifelike - full of vigor - as if they step out of our imagination world.” - so we thought.

It was at this moment that we cast ourselves in the keycaps, recreating their human features, from the eyes, the strands of hair to the wrinkles on their faces, granting them our inner emotions.

In a way, such changes in casting and sculpting (including the styles and the levels of details) enabled our creations to take another step of evolution.

Prepping for
the space race

If it was the inner imagination that produced the monsters, the king and his legion, then it must have been thanks to our dream of the universe that the latest creation at the time took shape.

The visors we put on our artisan keycaps did not only provide the outer space theme but also opened up to us a whole new universe of casting potential.

In the visors, we see…

A Starry Universe…

…at times, festivals or cultures…

But ultimately, they are all works of art.

A world on
your fingertips

Even more experimenting was done to realize our vision for artisan keycaps. Resin writing as done previously could only get us so far. We wanted more details, just like on the surface of the keycaps themselves.

That was when we came up with putting sculpts inside the visors.

It was an unspeakably difficult idea to work with despite sounding splendid on paper. Adding another object into transparent visors not only introduced additional bubbles, but also made it harder to manipulate the resin patterns with the sculpt encapsulated and taking up the inside space.

Something more
than just resin

Cold casting or mixing metal powder into the cast is a delicate process.

The cold casting we do is a bit out of the ordinary where we take one extra step and oxidize the copper metal, creating an authentic patina rust on our artisan keycaps.

This is exactly where keycap making corrodes our process. To develop a layer of rust for one batch can take up to a week, from submerging the finished keycaps into a specific environment and letting them rest for an even longer period, from 5 to 6 days.

The casting time is not accounted for in this period, which means casting one keycap may take even more than a week, easily doubling the usual casting time for other caps.

Moving Beyond Visors

We put on the visors to fly among the stars. But as we started to reach the horizon of visored keycaps, it dawned on us that we had just barely scratched the surface of keycap casting.

To reach even greater heights, it meant doing away with the traditions.

This was when custom visors took shape. This concept, newly conceived at the time, allowed us to breathe a new life into our creations and expand our keycap horizons even further.

From recreating the warriors of ancient time

To creatures that have long been dwelling in our imaginations.

But still with the familiar faces of our brainchildren.

BONUS!
The uncharted
course along the way

In our numerous attempts at casting the unknown, we managed to unearth some gems.

LED Shine-Through: In and of itself, this is not a new feature in the world of artisan keycaps. But limiting the effects to a certain area, that’s new.

The changes we made are simply to quench our curiosity, what is possible and what is not. We like to think that such changes in our styles or techniques should be interpreted as a reflection of growth, as artisan keycap makers and as individuals.

Skills and improvement are something you pick up along the byway.

Our belief has always been “Everything can be art.”

So here's the delicious question: To what boundary does “everything" define?