What creative projects have you been working on?

Well, figure I might say something here - I am working on a prototype of a game where the premise is that you're a bee doing little bee dances to help your hive find flowers. :) It's been a while since I've done art and that's definitely the most intimidating part for me, but I have a very clear idea of what I want everything to look like and I don't think it'll require a high amount of skill to pull off, frankly. So that's nice!

Recently, I've gotten back to my roots with a high school project that I've never really finished, despite being graduated from college for several years now.

Long story short, it was originally intended to be an April Fools' Day prank essay to my AP English Composition teacher musing about the woes of the AP exam and how it is a general detriment to the conscious mind...except...I never really finished it in the classical sense.

Flash forward eleven years, and this magnum opus of mine (actually, magnum stercus nuntius at this point) is a whopping 145 pages long akin to the likes of the late D. F. Wallace and Mark Z. Danielewski. To give you a glimpse of just what this actually contains, here's a select few title headers for your general amusement:

"Pale Blue Dot Analysis Essay", "What Does It Mean To Own Something: Part 2", "The Part Where We Time Travel Into The Future To Sanction The Entirety of Mars For Some Reason".

So I guess this technically counts as a creative project as well as a technical/programming project.

I recently developed a new hyperfixation after being given a ton of old computers and HDDs from my work: Homelab. I'd been wanting to start a homelab for a while, specifically a streaming media server for ErsatzTV, but I just didn't want to spend the money.

I basically frankensteined a server out of all the parts, and got some other stuff from Goodwill and Re-PC to round everything out, but it's all over my desk and looks like a Cyberpunk Hacker's desk. lol

Now here's where the project becomes creative. So in order to organize everything I've been looking into 3D Printable Server Racks and came across this one which is modular and expandable.

So I'm usually a bit extra, so I always try to think of creative variations of these kinds of projects I can do. I thought of a Stargate themed one that looks like an Ancient device with control crystals, I thought of a Cyberpunk theme with embedded EL Wire lighting that looks like circuitry, and a couple of other things.

But my golden idea was this: "Nickelodeon Blaster" Wacky Postmodernism Retro Device themed. I think the juxtaposition of maximalist wacky whimsical novelty toy designs from the 90s mixed with the complexities of a homelab server is kind of funny and unique.

So I actually have this phone that I snagged off of ebay years ago before this recent nostalgia craze drove up the prices, and I still want to collect them all. I LOVED these things when I was a kid, and LOVED the colors, the slime, oozing, etc.

Here's the rest of the devices:

https://i.postimg.cc/gJmpcxqw/ug36bno3p6a61.jpg

https://i.postimg.cc/zXhmTDQr/s-l2400.jpg

https://i.postimg.cc/cJQZNR3j/il-fullxfull-2295337640-4kni.jpg

https://i.postimg.cc/4NcCp40T/TK-VR-1028-1.webp

https://i.postimg.cc/WbZR0pHK/TK-VR-1029-4.webp

https://i.postimg.cc/xTmrLjZV/PC-VR-1375-1-fb90886e-17bc-4a94-a3ba-ab9fd8d1e8ce.webp

https://i.postimg.cc/k453Sx0z/Chat-GPT-Image-May-26-2026-11-10-50-AM.png

https://i.postimg.cc/NMBtGK7r/Nickelodeon-1.webp

ANYWAYS, I've started designing a variation of that 10" Server rack using these colors and design aesthetics.

I used AI to get an idea of what it could look like, and this looks pretty spot on to what I had in my mind's eye as far as theme and color scheme go.

Now keep in mind, the AI version is mostly incoherent so I'm not going to be copying the AI, just kind of using it as inspiration when modeling this out in CAD, and will probably come up with a far more coherent design.

Like I'll be utilizing exaggerated red buttons and levers, maybe some doohickeys, and I want to see if there's a way to incorporate these kinds of 3D hologram stickers into it somewhere, as well as these mini spinning emergency lights which I actually have just lying around my electronics bin. We'll see as the project comes along, I'm just in the sketching phase right now and I still need to plan out my modules, but I've locked in on the design for now!