Hello! I am back with a new casemod! It has been a while and that is because life has been very busy lately but I decided that it was time for a new one. I did also finish my last Bitfenix "Inspired by nature" mod and will be updating that one soon with the final pictures so make sure to check that out! This mod is made in cooperation with and for my girlfriend and since she is such a big fan of Zelda, we decided to dedicate this mod to that wonderful game. After playing Zelda BOTW we knew that a mod based on the graphics and designs that we saw in the game just had to happen. I think that it is visually just stunning but most important of all, the Sheikah designs are just wow. We wanted to capture these designs as good as possible in this casemod but also keep it nice and clean. Watercooling had to be added of course for the beauty of it and we wanted to use my 3d printer for some parts. So here you can find some pictures of the design and a small list of the hardware. For the hardware we do have some sponsors, which we are ever grateful! First we got an Intel Core i7-4790 from Steve at Supermicro, check out their gaming series products here. Second we got a very nice SSD from Crucial! And via my very good friend Tim Warning from Dutch Lion Customising we got a nice set of watercooling products from Alphacool. So a big thanks to all our sponsors because without them, this project would not have been possible! So here are the ideas for our design. That’s it for now, progress shots will follow very soon!
Nope, so lets explore that together! Allright, time for the first progress shots! We started with some VERY tedious work of getting the vinyl for the outside ready. We both really liked the Sheikah patterns that you can find in the shrines and we wanted to incorporate this in the mod by sticking it all over the case. The case itself has a matt black finish so we chose for shiny black vinyl. This way it does not take all the attention but becomes more of a detail. Here are some pictures of the very boring process of preparing the vinyl. Please remind me to never do this again! My girlfriend helping! And then we transferred it onto the case. It does stick very well so no need to paint over it or whatever, we can keep it like this. I really like the way that this turned out! So next up is to work out some of the larger things that we would like to do to the inside. In this case, the PSU is placed at the front and as you can see in the earlier designs, we want to cover that up. Luckily enough we can laser cut this at a place nearby for very little. Stay tuned!
Time for the next update! We knew that we wanted to use the 3d printer to make some cool looking stuff and what better than a fan cover, in Zelda style? So we decided on a design, I then created the model in Maya (I know, I should learn Fusion but I already know Maya..). We’re using the DaVinci mini printer. It’s not the largest one but it works good if you’re a bit creative with it. The software is a big issue however.. It just sucks. Here some pictures for the fan cover. I lost the original picture, so here the one on my phone. Gotta slap some paint on there. I really like the texture of that paint. Next we got to use the laser cutter! Really excited because I actually never used one before. I wanted to replace the grill that is on top of the case with a plexi cover and put some Hyrule text on there. Who can translate what it says? Perfect fit! It will be fully transparent in the end but there’s still some protection on there. That’s it for now. Next will be the PSU cover, which is going to be quite the challenge since I need to bend plexi and I never did that before. This will be a combination of plexi and 3d print. Till next time!
Time for a very big update! We worked on the cover that will hide the PSU. For this we also used the laser cutter. Next to that we also made use of the 3d printer. The idea was to make a Sheikah eye on the side which will light up. We want the eye to have a little bit of depth, hence the 3d printer. I have a lot of images for you guys so lets just start with those! Printing the parts for the Sheikah eye. After a couple layers of black paint, we placed it on the plexi. No the making of the plexi. Starting with the part that we got out of the laser cutter. Using one of those machines is so cool, the result is so clean and it is actually really cool to see your ideas come to life! This is where the bend should be. I have to admit that I am really satisfied with how that turned out! And now with the Sheikah eye glued on top of it. Test fitted it in the case. You can see that it’s not all straight in the end but this will be fixed with another piece of plexiglass. This one to be exact! Got to make sure it fits again. And now glue it together. We don’t want to damage the paint now would we? And the final result! And in the end I realised that the cover needs 2 holes for the watercooling tubes since the best way to place the radiator will be with the ports on the front of the case. Sooo, I drilled some holes. Next up will be the lighting behind the PSU cover to light up the eye and also some covers for the motherboard. Till next time!
Allright, time to put that 3d printer to use once more! I wanted covers for the motherboard to make it look cool! Because that’s what a motherboard should look like and right now, it’s just boring. Process was the same as all the other prints: print, sand and paint. But this one has a little extra. Here they are on the motherboard after painting. And now to spice things up. A pattern! Okido. I also promised to show the lighting for the PSU cover in this update so let’s have a go with that. I found pretty amazing LED strips that work with a remote instead of software, since this motherboard does not support that. They were also pretty cheap and work just great! They have magnets in them and that works very well, but we need to stick them onto plexi so let’s use some two-sided sticky tape for that. I used some extra glue here, so they don’t come loose in the long run. And we got to tidy up the cables a bit here. PSU is a Cooler Master v600, in case anyone is wondering. And now it’s time to turn those lights on! That is starting to look really good! One extra picture without the light on for the heck of it. This is the original design of the Sheikah eye btw. So you guys have some reference for what we’re trying to create here. That is it for now! I’ll make sure that for the next update, we have some videos of the lights. We also have some really cool new sponsor news ready for the next one. Thanks for watching and stay tuned!
Hi all, Quick update from our side here. Life is a bit chaotic at the moment and we're also going to move soon. Next update should come in about two weeks so stay tuned! Cheers!
Quick updated dedicated to our sponsor Crucial, and to let all of you know that this is not the end yet! They decided to help us out with a nice 512GB SSD to get this system running! Here are some pictures! Really short update for now but I’ll have more time from now on since I just finished an insanely busy project which, if you like, you can check out here: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/L2R5ll Yeah I’m a 3d game artist for a living haha! Cheers!
Time to get that watercooling in there. Most of the parts have been built by now except for one thing, a nice piece to cover and hold the reservoir. Once again we used the 3d printer for that (I love that thing!). Started out with this nice red filament. First test in the case, this is more or les where it should go. Of course add some black paint and ready all the parts for assembly. We got this really nice small pump that fits this build like a charm. And here we got this radiator from Alphacool! This will fit nicely in the top of the case. Even with all the hardware in place. And then it was time to figure out some of the bends. I did watercooling once before for my own system but this was a much smaller scale and quite the challenge to be honest. But it was also fun to do and I learned a lot from it. So much that I’ll probably redo my own system soon. And with some patience, this was the result of all the bends. Unfortunately I lost some pictures but I have pictures of the pictures! And last but not least, because I promised, a video of the lighting. Don’t mind the fingerprints on the plexi or the shameless vertical video. That’s it for now. The build is finished as I’m typing this update so I will make some final pictures of it soon! Cheers!
Everything took a bit longer than expected because of the holidays but some good news here! We received some new gear from a really exciting sponsor: Steelseries! A big thanks to Peter from Steelseries for helping us out completing the casemod and making sure it can be used for gaming. I decided to have a go at creating videos of the products. This is the first time that I made product videos but it was a lot of fun. Some shots could use a bit less grain but the lighting conditions were not that good. I learned a lot from this and decided to create more videos in the future since I do really like it. Here are the videos! Let me know what you think and what I could improve in the next videos! Cheers!
Here are the final pictures! I won’t type to much and let the pictures speak for themselves but I’m happy with the final result and how much it resembles the first concept that we came up with. Of course the mod had to be inspected! That’s it for this mod! I would like to thank all of our sponsors for making it possible! I’m already working on my next mod, which will be my own computer. Got some crazy ideas for that so stay tuned! Thanks for following and let me know what you think! Cheers!
