[IC] KATattoo

[BeesKeys]

KATattoo

Designed by

Beesley & Cthalupa

Double Shot & Dyesub hybrid - No Reverse Dyesub Involved!

IC Form

Inspiration

Inspired by traditional Irezumi Tattoos

Kitting

 

 

Renders

Deskmats

Tattoo Switch Shop Deskmat byHawkersDraws

Daruma Chaos Deskmat by Tattoo Artist Irene Crowley

 

Vendors

TBD

Collabs

TBD

Discord

IC Form

Special thanks to everyone who supported through the design of of this set

SpikedSynapse & ImperfectLink

An even bigger thanks to my amazing Fiancée for putting up with me doing all of this!

[DirtyGingy]

The alphas are a rather harsh color combo

[cthalupa]

Some additional info on the hybrid method - Keyreative has developed a way to get the best of both worlds when it comes to doubleshot and dyesub processes, effectively doing a shot of white that is then dyesubbed on top of, with the rest of the keycap receiving a second shot in the base color.

This allows for novelties that can make use of the full range of colors from dyesub, details in the inner area that would not necessarily be dual-shot compatible, etc., all without having to worry about the potential downsides of reverse dyesub.

Keyreative has been sending out sample kits with caps created with this process, and the effect is quite cool in person.

Here's a cutaway showing a bit more detail on what this looks like:



We're working with Keyreative to get samples made for for these, and will post details on those when we get them.

[BeesKeys]

Kitting renders have been ammended with more suitable colors, board renders being updated soon

[garrdub]

I am pretty underwhelmed by the imagery chosen for the novelties. There is a lot of imagery to choose from when it comes to Irezumi and American traditional tattooing and I don't think this set pays proper homage to it. There are plenty of other subjects being left out. For Japanese traditional, things like snakes, dragons, flowers, koi, Japanese mythical beings, and heroes from Japanese folklore are some of the most popular subject matters. NONE of that is being represented here. I also see no good representation of American traditional tattooing in the design of the keyset. The lady face desk mat is the only obvious thing from my eyes that relates to American traditional. Some things that could be presented in the novelties that represent American traditional: ornate daggers, anchors, roses, horseshoes, stars, hearts, etc.

American and Japanese traditional tattooing are known for their boldness and heavy utilization of black and greys. Black and grey are used to make the colors that are used stand out. How do red legends on a blue keycap reflect that? it just makes the alphas hard to look at. You would never see red and blue touching like that in tattooing without some black in between them. Having them together like that is just wrong.

Also, to not have the KATakana kit and have katakana alphas instead of hiragana seems like a huge miss.

I would strongly suggest you go back to the drawing board with this. Sorry to be harsh, but American and Japanese tattooing have a very strict set of rules and imagery they use, so this set should reflect that.

[cthalupa]

I am pretty underwhelmed by the imagery chosen for the novelties. There is a lot of imagery to choose from when it comes to Irezumi and American traditional tattooing and I don't think this set pays proper homage to it. There are plenty of other subjects being left out. For Japanese traditional, things like snakes, dragons, flowers, koi, Japanese mythical beings, and heroes from Japanese folklore are some of the most popular subject matters. NONE of that is being represented here. I also see no good representation of American traditional tattooing in the design of the keyset. The lady face desk mat is the only obvious thing from my eyes that relates to American traditional. Some things that could be presented in the novelties that represent American traditional: ornate daggers, anchors, roses, horseshoes, stars, hearts, etc.

American and Japanese traditional tattooing are known for their boldness and heavy utilization of black and greys. Black and grey are used to make the colors that are used stand out. How do red legends on a blue keycap reflect that? it just makes the alphas hard to look at. You would never see red and blue touching like that in tattooing without some black in between them. Having them together like that is just wrong.

Also, to not have the KATakana kit and have katakana alphas instead of hiragana seems like a huge miss.

I would strongly suggest you go back to the drawing board with this. Sorry to be harsh, but American and Japanese tattooing have a very strict set of rules and imagery they use, so this set should reflect that.

We originally planned for for a secondary novelty kit that focused on american traditional, but we had to drop it for a variety of reasons. We wanted to still offer the deskmat in case people were interested in it independently.

This is a double-shot set, so we are working within those design constraints - this precludes things like having black borders around the legends. It's simply not possible with this method of production. We selected colors common in irezumi that let us arrange the set in a way that was pleasing to our eyes.

Some of your suggestions for novelties we looked at or tried but ultimately discarded due to how prevalent they were in other sets or because of design constraints. Ultimately, each additional novelty adds to the cost of the kit, both from the additional keycap itself as well as a surcharge on the whole kit pricing for every additional color. Similarly, adding additional kits adds a surcharge to the whole set as a sorting fee. Irezumi is not a loan word, so when picking between katakana and hiragana, we felt hiragana was the more appropriate choice.


We worked hard to balance design constraints, our vision, and being respectful to the source inspiration. I'm sorry that you feel like we didn't achieve this balance, but I will have to respectfully disagree with you on many of these points.

[KeebRehab]

Hi, as an east Asian person I have to say, please just stop using these "oriental" fonts for your ICs. It's off-putting to look at to say the least, which doesn't help sell this product to me (and people like me).
Noted on your rebuttal to the criticism above. However, if you're already working with so many constraints, why not keep your concept to either Japanese OR American Traditional tattoos? I feel that as this IC stands, you're not doing enough justice to either of them.
Also, I think despite only getting to work with two colours, not getting to have an outline, etc, you can still rework the colours to make this set look more thematic, or just more attractive in general.

[cthalupa]

Hi, as an east Asian person I have to say, please just stop using these "oriental" fonts for your ICs. It's off-putting to look at to say the least, which doesn't help sell this product to me (and people like me).
Noted on your rebuttal to the criticism above. However, if you're already working with so many constraints, why not keep your concept to either Japanese OR American Traditional tattoos? I feel that as this IC stands, you're not doing enough justice to either of them.
Also, I think despite only getting to work with two colours, not getting to have an outline, etc, you can still rework the colours to make this set look more thematic, or just more attractive in general.

For the keycaps themselves we have committed specifically to Irezumi, and have for quite some time in the set development - the deskmat is the only aspect related to American Traditional at this point. We had worked with a professional tattoo artist for that deskmat art much earlier on in the project, and just generally thought it would be a shame for the work to go to waste, since the deskmat doesn't need to have it's own independent MOQ, etc.

Feedback is noted on IC font, and I'll speak with Beesley on that.

[keepoto]

combination of alphas colours is a bit blinding and does not really convey the supposed theme, but I like the novelties simply due to the amount of effort put in. That being said aren't we missing some dragons for tattoos?

GLWIC!

[cthalupa]

combination of alphas colours is a bit blinding and does not really convey the supposed theme, but I like the novelties simply due to the amount of effort put in. That being said aren't we missing some dragons for tattoos?

GLWIC!

Thanks! We have been really excited about the novelties. We did really want a dragon, but the attempts to design one never resulted in one that we felt did justice to the source art - the limited space on the keycap and restrictions around line width were a struggle.


Since we've gotten a few pieces of feedback around the colorway, we'd love if people could help us understand what they mean by it not matching the theme - Beesley and I looked at quite a large amount of Japanese tattoos in designing the set, and we opted for colors that were both commonly used in general and also in some of our particular favorite pieces - we actually had a handful of different variations, but they were more around how bright the colors were vs. completely different colors.  This color combination was also significantly more prevalent in the irezumi vs. american traditional, and was chosen as part of our decision to focus more specifically on it.


I know it can be hard to put into words why something doesn't quite fit, but if anyone is able to help us understand what the disconnect is, we'd appreciate it. We've spent a good chunk of today thinking and discussing after seeing the initial feedback, but we're not quite sure where else we could really go with the colorway. Part of that might just be us being too close to it after months of work and this being sort of "set" in our perception as a result, but looking at a lot of the art that we were inspired by, we feel like the color palette is pretty representative. We definitely want to understand why people feel like we're missing the mark here, though - we want people to be just excited about the prospect of this set as we are.

[KeebRehab]

I don't think you're wrong about those two colours being the most prevalent non-black-and-grey colours in traditional Japanese tattoos -- it's that when you look at the set as a whole (which is how you would on a keyboard) rather than a single keycap or just the colour palette, it doesn't feel evocative of "tattoos".

My personal suspicion is that the set as it stands, is not paying homage to black-and-grey which ultimately serves as the foundation of traditional Japanese tattoos. Perhaps you could try adopting the perspective of a tattoo artist (or a traditional Japanese artist in general) -- start with a black-and-white base (as they would in traditional Japanese tattooing, calligraphy, painting, etc), and accentuate with colours where appropriate or necessary.

I am not a formally trained artist, so do take this with a grain of salt. You should probably still approach a proper artist or experienced keycap designer for more specific feedback.

[aicyborg]

I just don't enjoy the blue, red, and black all together. Any two of those and it'd be fine but to my mind (I admit, I don't have a great eye for aesthetics) the three together's just too much. Each colour's very prominent and then the three clash. I dislike the blue the most, personally.

I like Beesley's other designs (Hundred Acre in particular) but I just feel this doesn't land. There is so much... just, I dunno, "clash" between the blue and red.

[bkrownd]

I really like the vivid color combo.  The daruma theme is fun.

[cthalupa]

Taking the time to try and expand on the feedback and explain in more detail is really appreciated - thank you! It definitely helps us understand where you're coming from.

We're taking it under consideration along with the IC responses we're getting via the form as well.

I really like the vivid color combo.  The daruma theme is fun.

Thanks! If you're in the UK and happen to want a daruma tattoo, the ones from the deskmat are now available as flash art from Irene - her link is above the deskmat renders.

[niakulah]

Anyone using anything other than 6.25U or 7U spacebar has no choice but to use accent spacebars. I personally like using accent/contrasting spacebars, but I know many feel strongly against that. So I'd recommended having a spacebars kit in the blue of the alphas.

[synthtastic]

Really love the red on blue alphas. Wish the whole set was that combo plus icon mods personally. Really blinding but honestly awesome if GMK Bento R2 showed anything. Otherwise cool stuff imo. GWLIC I will be looking forward to GB.

Also where’s the 40s kit? Smh the disrespect.

[cthalupa]

Anyone using anything other than 6.25U or 7U spacebar has no choice but to use accent spacebars. I personally like using accent/contrasting spacebars, but I know many feel strongly against that. So I'd recommended having a spacebars kit in the blue of the alphas.

I think we'll have to see how feedback goes here - we want to try and minimize pricing, and another spacebar kit would be an additional cost for everything in the set because of Keyreative's new pricing method. We're sort of following the lead on GMK Kouhai here with the additional spacebars being accent only.

Really love the red on blue alphas. Wish the whole set was that combo plus icon mods personally. Really blinding but honestly awesome if GMK Bento R2 showed anything. Otherwise cool stuff imo. GWLIC I will be looking forward to GB.

Also where’s the 40s kit? Smh the disrespect.

We've got samples on the way for the different combos and we're pretty confident people will be happier with how they turn out in person. From there we'll figure out what we need to do with the renders and so on to represent it as accurately as possible.

40s is tough. We just haven't seen much demand for it, and it increases the base kit pricing if we do 3key, and pricing on everything if we were to go after a full kit. Think it'll be another case of 'if the feedback is there we'll reconsider.'

In general with the concerns around economic downturns, recession, etc., we're trying to be price conscious and consider the fact that people might have more limited budgets for their hobbies, and additions need to be the right thing for our potential customers.

[bkrownd]

  Looking at it a bit more closely the only way I'd be in the market is if there a hiragana-icon base kit, with no latin characters anywhere. THAT would be really distinct.  (particularly if the icons have a particular flair that goes with the theme)  I have about 20 keycap sets now, so if I'm dropping another pile of cash on something it has to be special beyond colorway and a handful of novelties.  "shift", "backspace", "f12" etc are compromising the vibe.

[sevenseacat]

Honestly, I'd love blanks in that teal colour, it's awesome.

[Dmitri]

what is the story of the theme, i see devil novelties

[cthalupa]

what is the story of the theme, i see devil novolties

They are Japanese Oni and Tengu, from Japanese folklore/Shinto mythology. They are commonly found in irezumi, Japanese traditional tattoos.