"Customized keyboard丨Buy and wait and see" A variety of secondary creation keycaps and some kit information 2023.1

This article only represents personal opinions, and is used to record and watch some keycaps.

The color card should be based on the real object, as sublimation will produce deviations.

The personal scoring part is a subjective part, and will be scored according to the manufacturer's status, design, and personal preferences. It is for reference only.

keycap

Let's take a look at the latest interesting keycaps

Domikey

Domikey came out with a couple of nice sets of dye sublimation designs at the end of the year. After a period of silence and having absorbed the experience of making the first set of dye-sublimation keycaps, Domikey is obviously going to show his skills in dye-sublimation.

FADING

This set of keycaps is a secondary creation theme keycap designed by the designer glove of "GLOVE STUDIO" - FADING. This designer is also a designer who often appears in my column and has a high level of design. There are Many good designs come from him. If you are interested, you can read the introduction of this designer's works in my previous articles.

This keycap is inspired by a game - "Elden's Ring". This game also won the annual game award of The Game Awards, which is called the Oscar of the game.

This work was developed and produced after the completion of the "Dark Soul 3" DLC. Hidetaka Miyazaki served as the director and screenwriter of this work, a famous fantasy novelist, representing George R.R. Martin serves as co-screenwriter.

The whole world revolves around choices and paths—bless or curse, reforge or go deeper into collapse, ascend or fall.

Color matching:

In terms of color matching, I chose golden yellow, moon white, and three shades of gray. In fact, about the translation of faders, the designer glove said

The accurate translation of fading is probably the words "losing blessings and falling into chaos"

When it comes to the setting of "Fader", the color of the eyes is a very important part. In the game, the color of the eyes represents the state of the character.

After losing the blessing, the faded person's eyes are gray and hazy.

The eyes of the epileptic line exude red and yellow light

The Blood Red Eyes of the Blood Dynasty

Learn how to pray for dragon food to transform the longan

And the color design of this set of keycaps is a general impression of the whole game. It not only represents the artistic style of the game, such as the use of colors, but also includes the understanding of some scenes and settings in the game.

In terms of color, yellow represents the blessing of gold, light gray represents the power of moonlight, and three grayish blues represent the gradual loss of blessing and chaos.

Personality section:

Seeing these personalized designs, players who have played the game must be able to recognize the game elements immediately. God body sword, dung beetle amulet, golden chicken feet, dung eater and so on. And as a small easter egg, the ending of the "Absolute Era" designed by foreign players, that is, the five fingers, is used as a personality design. What other personalized designs can you recognize? Welcome to leave a message in the comment area.

Radical:

Thanks to Resublimation, the choice of radicals is very diverse this time

Fading axis:

Shaft information:

Shaft Type: Linear Shaft

Spring: 40g gold-plated 22mm double-stage extended spring

Material: POM shaft, nylon cover, nylon base

Stroke: 3.8mm

Production: Haimu Electronics

As for the shaft body, I haven’t used it yet, so I won’t make an evaluation for the time being.

Rendering display:

Keycap information:

Material: PBT material

Height: original factory height

Process: sublimation keycap

Personal Rating:7

There will be higher requirements for the secondary creation of keycaps. This keycap has a high degree of completion, and the color matching is darker and colder. However, this is more in line with the art color style of the original game, but I still prefer it in terms of color. With the color matching of Chuanhuo, this one is still a bit heavy, and the gray part occupies the entire panel. Compared with his previous fire keycap, this keycap has a higher degree of freedom in personality design with the convenience of sublimation, and the complexity of the lines has also increased.

Purchase suggestion: Players who like game themes or dark themes can consider buying

This keycap is expected to be on the shelves after the Spring Festival, and it will be sold in stock at that time, without waiting. In terms of price, the whole set of single radicals is about 500+. The price is not low. In terms of quality, I haven't bought the latest version of dmk sublimation products yet. So for now, although it is still relatively optimistic, it still needs to wait and see.

The first batch is limited, pre-order as soon as possible. According to the sales situation and popularity, there may be two batches of products in the future.

PBT fans

After quickly producing several sets of two-color keycaps, pbtfans continued to work hard, and announced the products that will be on sale in the next year. Several sets are relatively high-quality designs.

Retro Dark Lights Retro Black Lights

This keycap is made by "MARS. Universe" designer Jr.Mars designed the retro-themed keycaps——Retro Dark Lights. The designer started designing in June last year. Currently, the studio is also operated by himself. He has designed many interesting products before. MW-STONE Age, MW-Coloradas, Melgeek-Salmon, ePBT-Winter Breath and other works mainly design products with key caps.

Of course, the source of inspiration for this keycap is not the traffic lights, but the Dark Mode of MacOS.

Previously, there was a set of its sister model MW-Retro Lights

Color matching:

Although this keycap has a rich color scheme, the overall impression is mainly dark, with other colors dotted in it, which is very similar to the system operation interface of the dark night mode, mainly black and gray. At the same time, in terms of color selection, I chose darker and purer colors, which are very eye-catching.

There are too many places about the history of mac OS that UI designers should study and study.

At the MacWorld event in San Francisco in 2000, Jobs demonstrated Mac OS X, which has a completely different visual experience and unique interaction logic-"aqua", which also set the tone for future mac system design.

macOS 11.0 redesigns the system icons and interface, dilutes the concept of physical switches, and gives people a lighter feeling. Make the overall UI and the visual experience of mobile devices ios and iPad OS more systematic. Larger button spacing, less grayscale intermediate colors, and stronger black-and-white contrast all make the interface more concise and clear. But the design of the new version is not perfect. For example, the icons of the new version are all framed in a rounded rectangle, which may cause some visual fatigue after a long time.

Personality section:

Personality comes from some dot icons in the system.

Very clear and minimalist personality, "close", "hide", "zoom".

Metal personality:

Table mat:

Keycap information:

Material: PBT material

Height: original factory height

Process: two-color keycap

Personal Rating: 7—8

I personally classify this keycap as a secondary creation keycap, and the scoring requirements will be higher. But compared to works with specific images, the source of inspiration for this keycap is a more abstract system concept. The minimalist style and colorful black are different from the traditional gray and white retro keycaps. I like it very much.

Purchase suggestion: Players who like minimalist style and colorful black can consider buying

This keycap is produced and manufactured by pbtfans, the quality is guaranteed, and it will be sold in stock at the same time, but this time the sub-kit needs to be noted that due to the limitation of the production process of the two-color keycap, the color supplement is not put into the keycap base. In terms of price, if you want to match color supplements, the price is expected to reach 700+.

Milkyway

Some products have been released one after another, but the rice sauce is still in a state of missing persons. Due to the epidemic, the factory has also been shut down for a period of time. Not long after New Year's Day, employees return to their hometowns for the New Year, and the production capacity is very tight. Incidentally, I was also down for a while (

Cosmic Diving Cosmic Diving

You still have an infinite future, but I have exhausted my energy.

This key is an astronomical theme keycap designed by the designer "Tomato" - Cosmic Diving Cosmic Diving. It is also the designer's first keycap design. This keycap has been ICed in September and is manufactured by Mikovi. There are too many hats, but GB said a few days ago that they will be sold in stock form, which is a bit more relaxed.

This keycap is inspired by a line in "No Stars in the Night" sung by Tell Five

You are the prototype of the Milky Way, and I am the black dwarf.

Color matching:

This keycap is a very traditional retro gray and white color

Personality section:

This keycap is full of personality.

In the root part, the astronomical symbols in the solar system are placed where they belong according to the initial letters

At the same time, in the mod area, the characters are replaced with various astronomy-related terms, such as Tidal Locking, Attract, Chaos, Evolve, Nebula, etc.

Rendering display:

Keycap information:

Material: PBT material

Height: original factory height

Process: sublimation keycap

Personal Rating: 6—8

In terms of color matching, the retro color matching is a very safe choice, and it is not innovative at the same time. I still hope that the follow-up works can make new ideas in color. But it must be said that the design of the radical is very thoughtful, and the character replacement in the mod area is also very interesting, which is the main reason why I am willing to give this keycap a good score, but the individual pattern design is still slightly lacking. lacking.

Purchase suggestion: Players who like astronomical themes and retro color schemes can consider buying

There are 300 sets in stock and 500+ large sets. The price is not low. For the current quality of keycaps, please refer to my previous Mikovi material evaluation article.

SOULCAT Civet

Lingmao Studio was established in 2020. In the past, the production and sales of keycaps were mainly carried out in the form of independent design and cooperation with foundries. The previous representative work was Yimeng Dunhuang. In 2022, they began to prepare their own sublimation keycap production line. The current keycap products are mainly produced independently, and their new molds and new materials are currently put into production.

It has been silent for a long time, but this time it brought a variety of works in one breath.

Dailan Dunhuang

This set of keycaps is the first work of the new designer KK. It is a set of national style theme design, which is very similar to the style of Lingmao Studio. IC will be released in March 2022, and GB will be opened in December.

This set of keycaps is inspired by Dunhuang murals.

Dunhuang, a glorious land, preserves the sanctuary of unyielding beliefs; the strong westerly wind solidifies works of immortal culture. We integrate all of these into the color scheme to highlight the user's thick and flexible attitude towards life.

Regarding Dunhuang, Lingmao Studio has also launched a product with the same theme before——Dream of Dunhuang

However, the design styles of the two are still very different.

Color matching:

Early IC post, for reference only

This blue-gray collocation is still very classic, such as the deep sea and the Arctic Circle, which are used in this color collocation.

As the color of the whole set of keycaps, dark blue looks like Dai in the distant mountains, and smoke in the near water. It is the modern encounter between the drunkenness of the ancients and the favorite of designers.

Personality section:

Real shot display:

Keycap information:

Material: PBT material

Height: original factory height

Process: sublimation keycap

Personal Rating: 5—6

Compared with many fancy color matching national style keycaps, the color matching of this keycap is relatively stable. Guofeng keycaps have a fixed audience, but for me, some of the key design content in the personality part is too much, but it has a complicated visual feeling.

Drawing is a two-dimensional artistic creation, but the keycap itself is a three-dimensional form. A good keycap designer must be able to play and understand keycaps. It is very important to understand the shape of keycaps well. This is why I don't like the "divided body" keycaps very much, and various methods of directly printing illustrations on the keyboard.

I can accept the design of some parts of this keycap, but I still need to pay more attention to the design of the pattern. At the same time, I need to consider whether these designs can achieve a "textured" effect when they are made into real objects.

Purchase suggestion: Players who like the national style theme can consider buying it

The expected price of this keycap is 189 yuan, the price is relatively close to the people, and it is currently sold on the platform.

Chainsaw Man

This keycap is a secondary creation themed keycap designed by Lao Wei, the designer of Lingmao Studio - Chainsaw Man. With the release of the chainsaw man animation, regardless of whether the animation adaptation is good or bad, the popularity of this work can be said to have reached an unprecedented height.

The design inspiration of this keycap is the protagonist of the comics - Denji and the dog-shaped chainsaw demon Pochita.

Color matching:

In terms of color matching, unlike many previous secondary creation keycap color selection modes based on characters as prototypes, this keycap does not select the character's own clothing and physical characteristics as the color matching, but uses a large number of elements that appear in the work—— Blood, as the source of color design, at the same time, the flesh pink in the letter area and the blood red in the mod area form a visual contrast, which is very memorable. Green, as the complementary color of red, makes the whole not so greasy, making red more red and green more green.

Personality section:

This time, apart from the individually drawn anime element patterns such as fused hearts, chainsaws, transformed demons, blood demons, fox demons, and eyeball demons, as well as patterns that are fused into characters, this time I prefer What I like is R1's personalized B key, three-color fusion, but I don't know what kind of effect it can achieve after subsequent production.

There is also a Pochita (sorrow) made into a keycap shape

Real shot display:

Keycap information:

Material: PBT material

Height: original factory height

Process: sublimation keycap

Personal Rating:6

There will be higher requirements for the secondary creation of keycaps. I personally think that this keycap is a very good keycap that will be sold in Civet. The color matching is still very pleasing, and it will also be liked by the public. Type, but I personally feel that the personality part is still lacking. It would be better if more personality elements can be used. At the same time, I feel that the overall personality color is still mostly blood red. It needs to be balanced. The pattern of Pochita is directly used as a personality design. Not quite right.

Purchase suggestion: If you like the theme of secondary creation of comics, you can consider buying it.

This keycap is still sold in the form of spot, 239 yuan for a complete set. This price is not expensive. If you like it, you can consider supporting it.

Decision

Film never dies, memory lasts forever

This keycap is decided by Decision, a film-themed keycap designed by the personal designer "mumu". In fact, when it comes to film, Kodak cannot be avoided. A century-old giant company with nearly 150,000 employees worldwide at its peak, its business covers more than 150 countries and regions around the world, occupying half of the global camera and film market. However, in just over 10 years after entering the 21st century, it quickly fell from the peak, leaving endless surprise and regret. It is the synonym of cameras and images - Kodak.

Regarding why this keycap is called "Decision", I personally think it is an extension of the sense of ritual. Life needs a sense of ritual. For the author, the ritual sense of recording life is "pressing the shutter".

Go back to the time of using film to freeze the years, and carefully embed the memory in the photo album

Color matching:

The keycap color matching is the color extracted from various film cassettes, not a retro color matching. I think memories have color and temperature.

In terms of color matching, it is actually difficult to get the theme-related elements of this keycap at first glance. First of all, it is a very deep unsaturated blue background color, which is a bit similar to midnight blue. At first glance, many friends may regard it as black. In fact, black can also represent the background color of the film packaging, but the background color of this keycap is Randomly picked.

This very soft red is kind of like a color somewhere between rose water and pink.

Midnight blue is paired with rose water color, quiet and playful, sweet and refreshing feeling is very good.

Personality section:

The small characters in the big key I added part of the film model and printing information, and I simplified the photography-related information into graphics and made it on the supplementary key.

The unique design of this keycap is the functions and information used in various shooting, such as aperture adjustment, shutter, exposure, etc., and the two carriage returns are transformed from the packaging of Kodak and Fuji film cassettes.

Real shot display:

Keycap information:

Material: PBT material

Height: original factory height

Process: sublimation keycap

Personal Rating: 5—7

In terms of color, the design of this keycap is quite eye-catching. However, the flexibility of collocation is not so high. The idea of ​​pressing Enter in the personality part is very good, but the design of other keys is still a bit simple. The personalized design should highlight the theme—the characteristics of the film itself, but these personalized designs are more like cameras, or taking pictures, and it is difficult to see the connection with the film.

Purchase suggestion: Players who like this color scheme or those who are interested in taking pictures can consider buying it

The price of a full set is 229 yuan, which is relatively affordable for five-sided dye-sublimation, but I am a little worried about the printing effect of the small print.

suite

Some kits I've noticed recently

Hill40

Studio: "Weird Studio"

Strange Studio is a customized studio specializing in niche and exquisite kits, established in November 2021. At present, 40 and some small toys are the main products

Arrangement: "40% Alice (Louise)"

Structure: Top+Oring

Configuration: coated aluminum cover (OEM color selection, flash powder +20), acrylic mountain bottom cover, knob

Liner: FR4 positioning plate (other materials are optional), 1.5mm single-mode slotted PCB (SKNX three-mode +135 is optional), partition lights + solenoid valves. PE shaft pad, 3.5mm Poron sandwich cotton.

Connection mode: three-mode, single-mode

Price: Deposit 700, final payment299

Personal evaluation:

The combination of "stinky tofu + durian", 40 and Alice, is a niche but interesting product. The biggest selling point is the iceberg decoration on the back.

Buying advice:

As a niche product, this price is quite sincere, but at the same time, the threshold of use has also been raised a lot.

Ginkgo65pro

Studio: "M•ONE Studio"

Arrange "65%"

Structure: Gasket Mount+Leafspring+Flexcut

Configuration: National standard 6063 aluminum + CNC processing, anodic oxidation electrophoresis PVD

Liner: standard 1.2mm hot-swappable PCB, optional welding 1.2mm soldering PCB, sub-board design, positioning board: PC and FR4 (choose one), standard shrapnel Gasket module and silicone Gasket module

Connection method: wired

Price: The electrophoresis anode is unified at 1499 yuan, the deposit group is 499 yuan, and the balance payment is 1000 yuan before delivery

Personal evaluation:

Ginkgo, as an excellent player in the 1.5k price range last year, is still very capable after being upgraded this year. For players who are just getting started and want to buy a well-designed mid-low price customized kit, Ginkgo pro is good choice. But it must be explained that, judging from the current construction period, it will not be available until at least April and May next year.

Buying advice:

65% is a small set with a low threshold, and it is easy to get started. At the same time, Ginkgo has a good reputation. For many players, it is a good "young people's first non-tool customized keyboard".

Shooting by Maizichao

Studio: "owlab"

Arrangement: small toys

Configuration: CNC aluminum alloy, anodized electrophoresis

内胆：定位板与中框一体化，双模PCB&排线&子板*1，内胆夹层（poron夹心棉&轴下垫）

Silicone light guide strip*1, EVA shading strip*1, battery*1, pc battery cover*1

Connection mode: dual-mode, bluetooth wired, using the qk solution, you can refer to the effect of qk65, 60, 75.

price:399

Personal evaluation:

Small toys, not very practical, but it can be placed seven times, it is a very good keycap shelf. At the same time, wireless blessing, which is very important for small toys, has a side volume roller, which is a little more convenient than other small toys. The price of 399 is actually quite cost-effective for this kind of small keyboard of cnc. After all, in terms of cost, the cost of the keyboard is not the raw material but the processing.

Buying advice:

The description on DC of this small toy is that it will be a resident product, but there is no specific description in China. I tentatively understand that it will be replenished after a batch is sold out, but it does not rule out that OW will treat domestic and foreign countries differently. It's no secret anymore. If you like it, you can consider buying it, but you should only accept salted fish. If the price is increased, I personally think there is no need to buy it.