We made the trophies for the Utah Game Developers Choice Awards this year! :) We look forward to this celebration of local game devs every year so we were happy to volunteer our skills for the cause. Congratulations to all the nominees!
We tried to highlight the Utah IGDA logo so we started our designs with a 3D version and made sure to get some filament to match the logo colors. We also ordered metal ingots to make sure the trophies had a nice weight to them despite being 3D printed. We knew from previous years that there are usually primary and secondary awards so we worked on 2 sizes.
After some research, we decided to have the smaller trophy twist and grow into the logo at the top to give that classic award feel while still highlighting the Utah game dev scene. One of the benefits of 3D printing is that you can do rapid prototyping at pretty low cost so we were able to go through an iterative process until we decided the award was a good size and had a clean surface.
For the larger award, we started with the idea of a 3D scanned game controller with the logo as a button but when we compared that to the smaller trophy we didn't like the size discrepancy of the logos. We tried a couple different variations on the controller idea but it started to feel gimmicky and disjointed, not fitting for the big awards of the year. Still trying to incorporate the game dev spirit, we went with classic style controls with the joystick and button combination reminiscent of arcade games. That allowed us to set up the logo as the arcade cabinet display and gave us a much more sincere and pleasing trophy.
For the bases we printed the names right into the faces to create a cleaner look and smoother finish. We went through a little testing to find a font and size combination that fit on the baseplates and looked good when printed. To avoid having layer lines running down the sides and since our print bed leaves such a distinctive sheen we decided to print all the parts of the base face-down. Sam came up with a "3D Print Origami" design which has the faces all as one plate with angled grooves cut into them to make a fold line. When popped off the build plate while still warm from printing they can be folded without snapping or discoloring the plastic and then will cool and harden in that folded shape. This gave us a really clean base plate cover for the awards.
To assemble, we started by gluing the metal weights into the bases and the body of the taller trophy. We used superglue to make sure they wouldn't shift around. Then we used a superglue baking soda concoction to adhere the printed plates onto the base. The combination created a kind of plastic weld that held up really good during our tests. We used superglue again to attach the parts onto the insets in the base plates. Finally, we added felt feet to the bottom, wiped off any fingerprints and baking soda residue, and were good to go.
