[IC] GMK Midnight Rainbow GB Now LIVE (GB Thread Pending)

[Jae-3soteric]

UPDATE!!

Group Buy Live on NovelKeys  - base kit at $130!!

- Vendors and Dates updated (Canada and UK vendors added)
- Base kit and spacebar kit renders updated
- Prices added
- Deskmats added!!


----------------------------


Hello everybody

This is the Interest Check for GMK Midnight Rainbow, A dark but colourful set, designed to be the showpiece of your board.

Design & Inspiration
This idea originally began to form in the back of my head in 2017; some of you may remember the old run of GMK Rainbow on zFrontier. This was a set that divided opinion, and is rarely talked about today in the western community, but still managed to make MOQ when the community was significantly smaller. I wanted to pay homage to the set, but also bring a modern, more usable set for the majority of boards. The main idea was to tone it down, and bring some clarity and order to the colours.

However; as happens with many projects, this fell by the wayside, and it was only when I saw the amazing festivities of the Manchester Pride event a few weeks ago that I was reminded and re-inspired to bring this set to life.

Designed to be the showpiece of your board and highlight the details of your case. A flashy set that remains demure, and controlled. An experiment and flirtation in artistic expression that results in a Bold, but secure design. Something that pays homage to the original Rainbow set, and also supports the Pride movement;

Enter GMK Midnight Rainbow:

Kit Design
Base
This kit supports all the most popular custom keyboard layouts from standard TKLs to 65%, WKL bottom rows, HHKB, a numpad and more. There is also UK ISO support in the base kit (as I’m an ISO user).
Due to the nature of the colourway some usual key duplication allows further kit optimisation (Mod coloured \| on ANSI for example).

Spacebars
A small kit designed to give split board users the ability to adequately cover the bottom row, as well as an extra B key for those Alice type layouts.

Base Kit

Spacebars kit

New renders!!

Group Buy Details
Dates: June 5th to June 26th

Pricing & Vendors:

Artisans
Latralium: Meika has kindly offered to make some of her amazing caps to match this set!
Alphakeycaps: Yohan has designed the below Keypora to match the set!!

Cables
ZeusCables: Proud to announce an awesome collab with Zeus for cables:

Deskmats
Novelkeys:

Constellation

Midnight Rainbow

Thanks
Many thanks to the following for your help and support during the design of this set:

• David and Yullia from MyKeyboard and Mike from NovelKeys for their ongoing support and help in getting the set into IC
• Kwer, Egla, Max, Poesjuh, Swires, Tobbles and Yian for their incredible friendship and good times, as well as support in everything I’ve done in the past couple of years
• My lovely wife, Ellie, for reminding me not to take things too seriously
• The community, for all the support and feedback (both good and bad) that’s helped me to grow
• MacSurfy and UndercoverBrother for the amazing renders
• Konstantin for the Kit changes

N E More Renders Avail?

J-01 by Jae

J-02 by Jae

Bauer by Dixie

J-02 by Jae

Lodestone by Flex &Jae

[Jae-3soteric]

*Reserved*

[eskimojo]

I can dig it

[quaddepos]

Are the Split space 2.75C etc?


Verzonden vanaf mijn iPhone met Tapatalk

[dimo]

Left arrow key blue and right arrow key yellow?

The all green looks out of place on a lot of the layouts 

[rowie]

Very nice! Love it. Any chance you can add a stepped Ctrl key for those of us rocking a stepped key compatible hhkb layout?

[quaddepos]

Left arrow key blue and right arrow key yellow?

Was thinking the same


Verzonden vanaf mijn iPhone met Tapatalk

[Hedgey]

Looking good Jae!  This could be awesome and I hope it's very successful!!

[Jae-3soteric]

Left arrow key blue and right arrow key yellow?

The all green looks out of place on a lot of the layouts

I did some test renders with it and it didnt look great I must say - I'm happy to add those renders to the deck and let people comment 

[Emir]

NE icon mods avail




Nice renders! I like this! 🙏

[Jae-3soteric]

NE icon mods avail




Nice renders! I like this! 🙏

Icon mods dont show off enough of the colours - test renders looked strange - this will be icon and text

[mrpetrov]

I don't usually dig gradient colorways but this is really terrific, the fact that it's legends-only gradient give it a lot more subtelty which works really well imo! Also a fabulous change of pace to most of the sets coming out at the moment - definitely in!

[CAPS UNLOCKED]

Love this! 

[IOVERCALLHISTIOCYTES]

Is the base color CR black or something else?

I locer the color swaps. When I'm loaded someday I'm gonna run GMK Handarwhite, with the colors for each key swapped, and GMK Senin, N9 on U9.

[konstantin]

Ah, I remember this idea from last year's GMK Rainbow on Black IC. Glad to see it's being revived.

MacSurfy did a great job with the renders, as usual.

[depletedvespene]

Since the point of this set is clearly about presenting a smooth color gradient, perhaps extra care should be taken when dealing with keys that may be located in differing places that might ruin the illusion — the clearest example of this is the four arrow keys as they would be set on a common 75% layout; perhaps some of those layouts could even warrant an alternative set of arrow keys (and who knows what other nav keys... I suspect common 1800 layouts might need extra attention in this regard, too).

[eskimojo]

ALSO: Atlantis ISO, blah blah blah.

sir this set has ISO UK

[depletedvespene]

ALSO: Atlantis ISO, blah blah blah.

sir this set has ISO UK

Sir, this old fart needs glasses.

[Mcnos]

Wish it lead into a pink hue instead of purple but that's cool.

Glad you did this instead of me.

[futurecrime]

I have Rainbow and I love it. I love this too.

[Jae-3soteric]

I have Rainbow and I love it. I love this too.

and I love your Keyboards.... (DMG out for delivery tomorrow finally )

[AdamDaKing]

I like this.

Maybe accent keys could be solid colors with black text?

[Lil]

I love it

Sent from my G8341 using Tapatalk

[vicissitude]

Love it so much.
Especially the black ground. 
Let's push it to GB.

[crd]

My feedback is to add a purple grave since a proper hhkb layout would move it to the far right in the split backspace position

[depletedvespene]

I made a quick mock-up in KLE of how this set would look on a 75% layout with the keyset as it stands as of this post:



As you can see, the gradient effect is mostly fine, except for three keys that would be better off with a different color: Fn in green, Scroll Lock (or Prtsc) and Insert in Purple. Perhaps the arrows would look better in blue as well (IMHO, WDIKAA).

I'll be the first to agree that tending to each and every possible variation in color due to differing layouts is, essentially, an impossible task, but at least a list of the most frequent color variations for common keys should be compiled and considered for addition (probably in a separate kit).

 

[Xerpocalypse]

This is way cooler than I expected based on the name alone, Jae. Awesome work.

[lush_bunny]

I’ve got to stop browsing geekhack every 5 mins, I want every nice keycap set in my mouth.

[minimin]

Is  the black background color same with that of the GMK WoB?

[rondg]

RAMA keycaps please

[WeathermanKarlos]

Really OP? You had the chance to use Rainbow in the Dark, or even just straight up Dio, and went with Midnight Rainbow instead? I'm disappointed.

[Hisui]

THIS IS FANTASTIC

[KΛZΛM]

no need for rgb now... 

[RubMyKoala]

My feedback is to add a purple grave since a proper hhkb layout would move it to the far right in the split backspace position

+1 Set looks fantastic btw

[SwitchKeys]

Built-in RGB  )

[dimo]

Left arrow key blue and right arrow key yellow?

The all green looks out of place on a lot of the layouts

I did some test renders with it and it didnt look great I must say - I'm happy to add those renders to the deck and let people comment 

I’d love to see if possible )

[donutcat]

I like the idea, and I like that you've managed to make it such that most layouts will work well with it, particularly making the F-row alignment such that 75%/96key/etc manages to look good even with their lack of spacing. Unfortunately some stuff is going to still not align optimally, and there's not much to be done about that since that's just the nature of layouts in 2019. I still think it looks good and I'm sure plenty of people will be able to make it look good on their layouts.

[Emir]

NE icon mods avail




Nice renders! I like this! 🙏

Icon mods dont show off enough of the colours - test renders looked strange - this will be icon and text

There's elegance in subtlety. The set is classy to the point where I don't feel like it needs to be in your face to sell the design vision. Of course a cluttered cap will feature more color, but icon mods would elevate the sophistication of it and add a touch of character and make it more graceful.

Be confident in your design, you don't need to scream it out. 🙏
Less is more!

[Pluto19]

I may be the only one, but I feel this gradient only works well on a 60% or a Toad-like 70%.

I was also wondering what the red R1 1u pipe key was for as well as seconding crd's sentiments on adding a purple R1 1u grave key.

As it is the only one showing a full "Control" modifier compared to all the other "Ctrl" modifiers, is it safe to assume it was an oversight in keeping it fully spelled out for your J-02 render?

Lastly, will there be corresponding function keys available that reflect the side cluster as shown in your J-01 render?

[Jae-3soteric]

Is  the black background color same with that of the GMK WoB?

Yes. It’s GmK stock black


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

[Jae-3soteric]

I made a quick mock-up in KLE of how this set would look on a 75% layout with the keyset as it stands as of this post:

(Attachment Link)

As you can see, the gradient effect is mostly fine, except for three keys that would be better off with a different color: Fn in green, Scroll Lock (or Prtsc) and Insert in Purple. Perhaps the arrows would look better in blue as well (IMHO, WDIKAA).

I'll be the first to agree that tending to each and every possible variation in color due to differing layouts is, essentially, an impossible task, but at least a list of the most frequent color variations for common keys should be compiled and considered for addition (probably in a separate kit).

 

Yeah it’s stuff like this that I was alluding to in the OP. I need community feedback to make it the best I can without just making that whole right side purple.

As you say I won’t get it perfect for every layout and the current version is based on 60/65/TKL/mini1800/1800/full-size. Where I can make simple accommodations I will do. The arrows most specifically may have some revision based on feedback.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

[Jae-3soteric]

My feedback is to add a purple grave since a proper hhkb layout would move it to the far right in the split backspace position

Great spot - the pipe key on the top right has the wrong legend. That should be grave.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

[lewisflude]

Stunning work, this is gonna look stunning on all sorts of black boards. Also really happy with the keys that comprise the base kit.

[Jae-3soteric]

I may be the only one, but I feel this gradient only works well on a 60% or a Toad-like 70%.

I was also wondering what the red R1 1u pipe key was for as well as seconding crd's sentiments on adding a purple R1 1u grave key.

As it is the only one showing a full "Control" modifier compared to all the other "Ctrl" modifiers, is it safe to assume it was an oversight in keeping it fully spelled out for your J-02 render?

Lastly, will there be corresponding function keys available that reflect the side cluster as shown in your J-01 render?

I’ve tried to get it to be best for most common layouts from 60 to TKL and full-size as well as a few inbetween.

The pipe key in purple should be Grave - great spot.

Correct, slight error on the J-02 render. I’ll berate the guy responsible

The F1 keys will be as per the main kit. That render is from an earlier design phase and for illustration only.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

[Pwner]

NE icon mods avail




Nice renders! I like this! 🙏

Icon mods dont show off enough of the colours - test renders looked strange - this will be icon and text

There's elegance in subtlety. The set is classy to the point where I don't feel like it needs to be in your face to sell the design vision. Of course a cluttered cap will feature more color, but icon mods would elevate the sophistication of it and add a touch of character and make it more graceful.

Be confident in your design, you don't need to scream it out. 🙏
Less is more!

You like icon mods.  We get it.

[Ramsus]

Looks great!

[Poesjuh]

NE icon mods avail




Nice renders! I like this!

Icon mods dont show off enough of the colours - test renders looked strange - this will be icon and text

There's elegance in subtlety. The set is classy to the point where I don't feel like it needs to be in your face to sell the design vision. Of course a cluttered cap will feature more color, but icon mods would elevate the sophistication of it and add a touch of character and make it more graceful.

Be confident in your design, you don't need to scream it out.
Less is more!

Perhaps you should run your own sets with icon mods before asking others to do so 24/7. Nines didn't have Icon mods (and hey, good thing, I wouldn't have bought it if it had), Firefly not either if I recall. Just my 2 cents

[belgium_waffles]

RGB but without the movement

[eskimojo]

Nines didn't have Icon mods (and hey, good thing, I wouldn't have bought it if it had), Firefly not either if I recall. Just my 2 cents

bruh


unless you're being pedantic and meaning full icon mods, which Emir isn't asking for, you're just wrong

[SoraNoTenshi]

Any Chances of getting a Hiragana / Katakana kit?

Yes, only Alphas would be a reason for me not to join :<

EDIT: Other than that.. Good luck with it! It's a beautiful set, minimalistic but colourful. A lot of people (including me) will like this set!