Andrew Crawford

I was thinking about ways to get a little bit of extra light to the bottoms of some small objects I have been photographing recently (particularly dice), and to get light passing through translucent objects in a way that would highlight them. I envisioned something that used a piece of clear acrylic to transmit the light to the subject while not having an opaque base in the way.

This prototype is the result. The base is several layers of laser-cut walnut, glued together and finished. There is a cavity for the light and a lip that supports a piece of diffuser material and a 1-inch acrylic cube.

The electronics are pretty hacky. I recently designed some 3D-printed lights that hold LIR1254 rechargeable cells, a Chibitronics Circuit Sticker, and a tiny surface-mount switch for use in making rechargeable versions of my paper icosahedra. This is a variant of those with three Circuit Stickers (for more light) and the switch mounted upside down  (for access through a cut-out in the base). This could be done more elegantly with a custom circuit board, but this seemed good for a prototype.

Since I have only made opaque Jesmonite dice to date, I used some resin dice sent to me by friends to try it with translucent objects. The darker purple one is from Rosey Cricket, and the lighter one is from Silverleaf Dice. If you like dice, you should go check out all the wonderful pieces they make.