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[IC] GMK CYL Highlight (Hi Leicht) | New Renders, Base Kit Update, ?Novelty
Bobatype:
GMK CYL Highlight
(aka Hi Leicht / Handarleicht)
Keycaps brighter than your future. This is a highlighter-themed keycap set — because nothing says 'I'm a serious typist' like a keyboard that looks like it was attacked by a pack of overly enthusiastic office interns.
Now your keyboard AND your notes can both scream for attention!
Like any good student, I have copied someone else's homework (Hi! Viz, Flare, Handarbeit, Windbreaker) and have done some changes so it looks like my own.
Kits
Base Kit
v6
Older versions: Morev1
It took more effort to photoshop the kit render in GMK Flare than I thought, and honestly I would've saved more time mocking it up myself in Blender, so I could crank out some keyboard renders via KRK afterwards. Lesson learnt...
v2 (WIP):
v3
v4
v5
I have not done any other kit renders yet because I need some time for my eyes to recover...
Add-Ons Kit
- Render pending -
It would include windowed keys for Caps Lock, Scroll, NumLk, relegendables (in green, cyan, pink, yellow, and red-orange), and cherry icons, alongside some less common spacebars and shift keys (some similarity to GMK Black & Gold's Add-on kit.
Novelty Kit
- Render pending -
Still a WIP. I'm considering the cool S, Post-It note, and a stylised "Hi" in the same style as the Handerbeit keyboard text.
NORDEUK Kit
- Render pending -
I would also look to offer an 'international' kit in neon vomit too. This would require EU/UK vendor support.
Topic Sentence
I've always wanted to do a fluorescent keycap set, and after seeing GMK Hi! Viz, I finally realised it was possible, so wanted to do it in different fluorescent colour.
However I was struck with indecisiveness... I couldn't pick between pink, orange and green.... Like many others, I agonised over my favorite highlighter colour for ages.
Then I thought, why just pick one colour?
And... how can we make other people's eyes hurt harder?
So I was inspired by one of the most eccentric and controversial keycap sets ever that I love to hate... GMK Handarbeit (based on the G81-3000HBD OG Handarbeit).
As someone once commented in the original interest check: "Extremely repulsive set, yet I cant take my eyes off it."
I wish to emulate that energy here. How do I make people wish they were colourblind? How do I replicate that RGB-lit keyboard energy without RGB?
How can I justify wearing sunglasses indoors yet still look like a douchebag?
Colours:
More
These were the initial reference colours, but they're likely to change to achieve higher fluorescence where necessary. There are some good RAL alternatives that I'm considering instead. It is highly likely I may borrow the yellow from Hi! Viz and reddish orange from Glare.
Arguments
Note, I did take some liberties with copying the Handarbeit pattern so forgive me that it's not an authentic adaptation, but here's my justifications:
- Orange serves as the primary alpha colours instead of red, because orange is a more common highlighter colour
- R1 Esc is Red-Orange to mirror the F13, because it looks better
- I did not include 'Purple' as I couldn't find a good fluorescent reference. I feel that purple simply can't match the vividness of the magenta/pink which are much more common highlighter colours too.
Rebuttals
There's some design considerations I would like feedback on:
- I'm heavily considering if I should make the modifiers to text-only?
- If the modifiers are text, I could add "Rub Out" as a fun legend to the Add-on kit... the question is, would it be better in the OG Caps lock position, or in the R4/R3 Backspace where it makes more sense?
- Take a leaf from Handarbeit R2's artisan and using the stylised 'H' from the original keyboard as novelty key legend for the add-on kit? I would probably use fluorescent legends as well for more assault on the eyes. Such as Blue on Orange, Green on Red, Orange on Green and Yellow on Pink.
Deskmat
Exercise Book
I haven't yet gone around to illustrating it yet, so I've copy pasted an Adobe Stock image as a placeholder instead, but you get the idea.
I've always wanted to do a simple deskmat design that is the classic lined exercise book with red margin, and felt it would be the perfect backdrop to this set.
Fun fact: My original concept for this set was called 'Highlighter' (consider it a highlighter version of GMK Redacted), however it did not seem feasible to achieve the effect with double-shot/UV-print, and I wasn't ready to commit to dyesub unless I had prototypes made.
Pricing
Base Kit: TBA
Add-On Kit: TBA
NORDEUK Kit: TBA
GB Date
TBA
Vendors
US - TBA
CA - TBA
EU - TBA
UK - TBA
CN - TBA
SG - TBA
KR - TBA
OCE - TBA
Renders
D-60 Lite by KBDFans
Phoenix by Cable Car Designs
Cypher by Cable Car Designs
Isometria by ebastler
M60-A by RAMA
Gentleman65 by JKeys
OGR by AlchemistKeyboard
Haus by Hand Engineering
U80-A by RAMA
Rotor by PopSmoke
v4n by trashman
Paragon by Artemis Design
Please note these are just renders, and I'm awaiting colour samples from GMK
Collaborations
Feel free to reach out to me through discord: bobatype
Current confirmed collabs:
Special Thanks
MVKB for GMK Hi Viz that exposed me to the feasibility of highly fluorescent colourway.
Kiririn for GMK Flare which pushed me to push this idea out prematurely (and whose IC and kit render I copied).
Markymark for pushing Kiririn to actually bring Flare into IC which brought this into IC.
Cocobrais (and Cherry) for the original GMK Handarbeit inspiration.
If you like the set, please consider filling out the IC Form and leave any feedback you may have!
Just give me feedback in public. I'm a sensitive soul, but it's the least I can do for subjecting your eyes to this IC.
Discord ServerDespite only a small number of people in my server, I'm already annoyed by all the spambots, so for now I'm not going to promote more activity in there until this project is closer to GB stage.
Reviews
"Finally, a way to make your keyboard look like a rave flyer from 2003." - anon
"Just what my eyeballs needed — fluorescent neon regret in keycap form" - Lightsimon
"A sight for soothed eyes" - Confusious
Profile Signature Code
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tactilesbad:
--- Quote from: Bobatype on Tue, 04 February 2025, 04:24:07 ---whose IC and kit render I copied
--- End quote ---
Bobatype:
Yeah sorry, this IC is currently half as baked as I am right now.
I've been trying to cook up my own renders:
But not going to lie, I'm struggling with capturing the neon/fluorescence, without actual keycap samples on hand.
I'll need to do some imaginative post-processing i.e.
or ask someone to help render this if the IC goes anywhere.
I'm pretty sure changing the modifiers to text only or text+icon is the right call here, so it matches the 'highlighter' theme.
I also realise now there's a few errors with the initial kit mock-up, such as the Enter keys for ISO and 40's Enter should be yellow too, the R1 pipe key should be magenta pink too, R3 pipe key should be blue.
Anyways, I know this IC is lacking a lot of polish, but it's bit of a joke concept, so I'm just throwing it out here to test some waters. In another year, I would've post it on April Fools, but it was personally too amusing an idea to leave sitting.
XiXora:
Fun set! If you're going to include alternate enter colour for ANSI, please don't leave us out in ISO.
m202307:
Interested, but I'm way more likely to buy it if it runs with KKB instead of GMK.
I'd prefer if there were orange FJ keys available so you'd get consistent alphas; I'm not a fan of mixed colors on alphas.
Esc should probably be yellow; otherwise the yellow will be badly underrepresented on 60%-and-smaller boards. Usually esc/enter/space match on smaller layouts.
Also personal preference but any set that has weird legends ("hi" instead of "esc", or that one set that has "godspeed" instead of "enter"—what?) turns a set into an instant hard pass unless they're available as novelties and the base kit has standard legends.
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