sskki

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Someone had to do it

I can't believe it but no one's made an accurate prop of this nor done a proper analysis.

Although I doubt it, if anyone owns a copy of "The Predator: The Art and Making of the Film", could you tell me if there's anything on the Yautja counting system?

[sskki]

On Nano’s Birthday

or, “An Analysis Of The Shark Stickers On The Shinonome Fridge”

I finished rewatching Nichijou last week, and found out some interesting stuff about the timeline I thought I’d share. The anime doesn’t give away a whole lot of timeline info compared to series like Ace Attorney and Yotsuba&!, but even so it’s generally pretty coherent, and the date of Nano’s birthday is especially interesting. (No, really)

The anime timeline very rarely reveals any concrete dates; there are just a few indications like Hallowe’en and Christmas which give a rough idea of the current month or week. Episode 26, however, has a closeup of the calendar on the Shinonome fridge:

That shows Nano’s birthday is on the 7th day of the month, and it’s a Monday.

It doesn’t show which month though. (The English Nichijou wiki says it’s August, but I don’t know where that came from.) Two of the stickers are even obscuring the last few days, so it’s impossible to tell how long the month is.

Fortunately though, the anime provides enough information to narrow it down. Episode 22 contains the Christmas segments:

So Nano’s birthday must be after Christmas. And since everyone’s still in 1-Q in episode 26, it must take place before the start of the next school year (which is April in Japan). So Nano’s birthday is in either January, February, or March.

Can it be narrowed down any further? Let’s look at the case when Nano’s birthday is on January 7th:

The 1st and 14th days are public holidays in Japan, circled in red. Not only are they not shown as holidays on the Shinonome calendar, it also seems very unlikely that episodes 23–25 take place in the few days between Christmas and the 7th. I think it’s fair to rule out January as a possibility.

So we’re down to either February or March.

What are the dates of the public holidays in February and March?

If you check those against the Shinonome calendar you’ll see that both the 11th and 21st days are covered by the stickers, so it’s impossible to tell which one is the public holiday…

So not only do the shark stickers prevent us from knowing the length of the month, they also obscure the only relevant public holidays. The stickers were deliberately arranged to make Nano’s birthday ambiguous between February and March.

Honestly I believe that’s what was originally intended. For some reason Arawi didn’t want to give away the exact date, at least not back when the anime was made. However…

In volume 9 of the manga there’s a timeskip into the future, when Hakase is in high school. No dates are visible in the chapter itself, but in the 2015 Nichijou calendar there was a bonus page featuring the timeskip:

The important thing here is the year:

Apparently the timeskip is set in 2021! April 20th of that year is a Tuesday, which fits with what it says on the top left of the bonus calendar page (火 is short for Tuesday). The date is also consistent with the calendar in Mio’s timeskip chapter in volume 10:

This chapter is set just before Mio and Mai tell Nano that Yuuko is returning to Japan, so it makes sense that the date on Mio’s calendar is shortly before the 20th. It’s pretty clear that Arawi had concrete dates in mind for the timeskips. But what does that mean for Nano’s birthday?

The fact that the timeskips are set in 2021 doesn’t immediately give us the year of the main story, since we don’t know the exact offset of the timeskip. But combined with the fact that Nano’s birthday is on a Monday, it helps to narrow down the possibilities.

The first possibility is that Nano’s birthday is in 2011. It could be February 7th or March 7th – they’re both Mondays, since February has 28 days. But there’s a problem: in episode 3, Hakase says she’s eight years old. If episode 26 is set in 2011, then episode 3 is set in 2010, which would make Future Hakase 18 or 19 (depending on when her birthday is). That just seems too unlikely; she’s supposed to still be in high school, and she also just looks a lot younger than that anyway:

The only other year consistent with the fact that Nano’s birthday is on a Monday is 2016. Then Hakase would have been eight years old in 2015, making Future Hakase either 13 or 14. That’s too young for high school … but then again, this is Hakase we’re talking about. If anything, it’s a little surprising that she didn’t skip high school altogether.

So: Assuming the anime is consistent with the easter egg in the Nichijou calendar, the conclusion seems to be that Nano’s birthday is in 2016. It does require that Hakase enters high school a year or two early, but I think that’s a pretty reasonable assumption to be honest. She’s certainly intelligent enough, and let’s not forget she already somehow managed to persuade the Principal to admit an extra student in unusual circumstances once before…

Who knows if we’ll ever know for sure, but if Nano’s birthday really is in 2016, then we can actually deduce the exact date. 2016 is a leap year, which means February 7th and March 7th are on different days of the week, so there’s no ambiguity between them. So if it’s in 2016, then Nano’s second birthday – and the final episode of the anime – is actually today: March 7th!

[sskki]

Excuse me what?

S1E11

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Anyone else remember that time PB tried to get Finn to kiss Jake’s face on her butt?

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Haven’t updated on Tumblr for a while.

So the Model Infinity Train Project is going pretty well.

I ordered all my materials and sent out posters to send to my backers which are starting to arrive. I currently have an overflowing box of 38 train sets, a sack of metal train wheel sets and a gallon (I’m ordering more later) of casting resin but no silicone to make moulds with. Apparently the Amazon seller I bought it from forgot to put my street name on it (how does that even happen?). I’ve sorted that out now so I expect it to arrive soon.

The project Discord server is quite friendly. I’m hosting weekly livestreams where we talk about the show and listen to music while I remodel the Engine. We’re deep diving into the lore of the show which is always a pleasure.

Today, I recieved the master copy of the train cars to make the moulds with, which you can see above.

I’ll update again when I make my first castings, until then! 👋

[sskki]

Throwback

JOURNAL 3 BLACKLIGHT EDITION REVEALED! (Part 1)

Today’s a special day! Today is not only Father’s Day, but Alex and Ariel Hirsch’s birthday! Let’s celebrate by cracking open your copy of Journal 3, prepping your blacklight and invisible ink pens, and jotting down everything here in the special edition so you can have a copy for yourself without resorting to eBay or shady second-hand Craigslist deals!

I was lucky number 02149 to get a copy of the special edition of Journal 3. Well, lucky as in “I could afford to buy it and pre-ordered it back in March the exact day I heard about it going on sale.” Still, I am PSYCHED to share this with everyone! Admittedly I didn’t take photos of every single page – only the ones with black-light effects that were more than ink spatters. Some I had to take [kinda big] pictures of individually, to be able to read the text properly, and others were multi-page spreads that I couldn’t resist capturing in their beautiful glowy glory.

Of course I’ll be captioning them all for you, in case you can’t download/read them. Also, there’s a few secret codes in here! But did you really expect anything less? Also also, this is a 9 page word document (not counting pics), so I’m splitting it up into 3 parts. Especially considering the size of these pictures. 

Keep reading

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50 HOURS TO GO!!

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“We’re gonna hide the bodies”

Sounds normal when you’re learning how to make living hinges in Fusion360 if you’re not sleep deprived.

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AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

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People seemed confused about whether the Engine was included or not, so here's a new project photo. www.kickstarter.com/projects/sskki/toy-infinity-train-set

[sskki]

ATTENTION INFINITY TRAIN FANS!!!

Reblog this as much as possible! If you ever wanted a real Infinity Train now may be the only chance we get

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sskki/toy-infinity-train-set

[sskki]

For the small number of people that will see this

Please check out my kickstarter and comment suggestions. I’m still workshopping ideas for the reward tier names. I’ll post the link again in a proper “shareable” post when it’s finally approved.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sskki/toy-infinity-train-set?ref=3xkva4&token=f32b1443

[sskki]

Kickstarter is lowkey ruining my life

Ever since I submitted my first Kickstarter for review, I can’t stop thinking about it. I’m meant to be studying for exams but I just keep writing and rewriting my project description and coming up with new and exciting tiers (even if they’re not profitable). How long until Jun 10 ;-;

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Alright so it’s been a full year since my last update (where I declared the project dead) but I’ve decided that if I don’t act now, this will never happen. So I’ve started writing a kickstarter and I just need to do some budgeting before I launch. Fingers crossed and we’ll all be able to watch our favourite instant childhood trauma machine roll around our bedrooms by Christmas. EDIT: I’ve finished writing it, it’s currently under review. I’ll be doing the prelaunch as soon as it’s approved which will be no later than Jun 10. Hype!

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A rare glimpse at the couplers which join the cars together.

[sskki]

Toy Infinity Train Set Update 3 (and questions)!

I think I’ve just about finalised the design (looks like the scale pencil will be a recurring character, so reblog with name suggestions please).

As stated in the previous update, these train cars are a weird proportion to both real trains and model trains: they’re wide and short. The size of each car was maximised while still alowing them to ride HO scale tracks without looking like a monorail and allowing the cars to ride along the tops of other cars (although the wheels don’t run in the grooves). Making the trains smaller so that the wheels (which have have a fixed width) do run in the grooves would force the sides of the train hanging over the wheels to be too thin.

This time I’ve remembered to render a close up of the doorway, ladder and rack (what I call the slots that the cogged wheels of the cars engage with in the show which are too impractical to implement in a train of this scale). There are 55 rungs on the reference image I used, but due to the limits of SLA resin printing (0.5mm minimum width for engraved details) there are 19 rungs on my cars. It doesn’t detract too much imo. The “teeth” of the rack are also slightly different to the canonical train - my train has the racks equally sized and spaced apart which resulted in teeth along the edge/corner of the car. There aren’t any cogged wheels to run on them so equal spacing is unnecessary but personally I prefer it this way but if you’d prefer the rack be positioned and sized more accurately to the show please reply.

As mentioned in the previous update, the train is split into two parts: the “main car” and the “trucks”; which allows it to be moulded and casted. This also allows me to redesign the bottom even after production begins, which brings me to my most important question to you. Currently there is no way to link the cars together - here are the options:

Leave it, it looks fine and those who want to link cars together will find a way.

Have two variants of the bottom available: “display” or “with couplers” built into it. This will also allow me to make couplers that are shaped exactly like the show (hey Owen if you have any more reference images of the couplers, that’d be incredible). But I’ll be making the “display” version first, so those wanting the “with couplers” version will have to wait for me to make enough money to persue that.

The couplers can be removable. They’ll snap on and off the truck, grabbing onto indents on the sides of the truck body. Maybe I could sell the couplers separately for those who want it. But because they have to snap on and off, I’m worried they might be too weak to hold the train together which is why [option 2] might be better.

Please reply with your choice. If you have a better idea or other criticisms, they are also welcome in the replies.

If all goes well, I’ll be ordering the protoypes in the next update. How exciting.

edit:

It seems that interest in the train has died down. As I’m not sure about the project anymore, I’ll be postponing this until I have enough money to produce this as a personal passion project and not worry about breaking even. If hype for a toy Infinity Train builds up again, I’ll reconsider ordering the prototypes.