[IC] GMK Serika 2

[Zambumon]

The beige and yellow set is back for a second iteration with greater layout support, revamped novelties, and two full-size core kits with either Hiragana or Latin only alphas.

Group Buy Thread

Where To Buy

🇦🇺 Australia -  Daily Clack
🇨🇦 Canada - Desk Hero
🇸🇬 Southeast Asia - ILUMKB
🇺🇸 USA - Novelkeys_
🇪🇺 Europe - Oblotzky Industries
🇨🇳 China - Zfrontier
🇨🇳 International - Zfrontier

Timeline

Orders will open on December 3rd, 2020, and will close on January 7th, 2021.
Estimated shipping date: Q3 2021 (on or before October 31st, 2021)





Proposed Kits



The Hiragana and Latin Core kits are your starting point and provide basic layout coverage for 60%, 65%, 75%, TKL, 96-key, 1800, and full-size layouts
in both standard and winkeyless variants for both ANSI and ISO layouts, all of that while keeping in mind affordability.



The Macro Expansion add-on kit extends the Core’s layout coverage and provides support for 660-like keyboards (2.25U Shift), standalone numpads
(double zero and equals key), ergonomic and split keyboards (split space bars and a second B), 88-key tenkeyless boards (F13), 60% keyboards
with arrows (2.00U and 1.00U Shift) and extended boards such as the ION Zenith (M1-M10 keys).

Additionally, the kit also includes alternative layout modifiers for HHKB, tenkeyless, and other standard layouts.




The Forties extension kit adds layout support for small form factor and ortholinear keyboards such as the OLKB Planck, ION × AI03 Equinox, or AE × Percebe.

The kit includes accent Enter and Esc keys, 1.00C to 2.75C space bars, and some alternate layout support for ortholinear keyboards.



The International kit provides full layout coverage for Danish, Finnish, German, Norwegian, Swedish, and UK ISO keyboards.




The Geometries kit is a small kit with geometric novelties and accent arrow keys.




The Space Bars kit includes accent space keys from 1.00C to 7.00C for both standard, split, and 40% keyboards.

RW × Serika Novelty Keycap



Produced by RAMA WORKS®
Cherry profile row 1 (Esc key)
Compatible with MX style switches
BEAM finish (Polished Anodized Aluminium). Enamel infill


Salvun × Serika Novelty Keycaps



Produced by Salvun in Belgium
Cherry profile row 1 (Esc key)
Compatible with MX style switches
Made of brass, cerakoted, then laser etched and clear coated.

Deskmats

Serika Deskmat



Hexagon Dark



Hexagon Light



Pricing



Gallery

ION Zenith


Zambumon Fisterra


TGR Alice


Keycult No.2/TKL

Zambumon Sar

Technical Specs

• Made in Germany by GMK electronic design GmbH
• Cherry profile (1-1-2-3-4-4)
• Compatible with MX style switches
• 1.5mm thick double-shot ABS plastic

Disclaimers

• Kindly note that the images are of 3D renders and are for illustration purposes only. The final colors may differ slightly.
  
• Keyboards are shown for demonstrative purposes only and are not included with the purchase of these keycaps.
  
• For additional updates push notifications regarding this project, please join the Discord server and type in #bot-spam !join gmk-serika. All updates on this thread will be posted there too.
  

[Zambumon]

Sam

[Puddsy]

i love zambumon

[KebinPls]

sweet, serika will be affordable again! dope set zambu

[of_sam]

Unbelievably lit!

[IOVERCALLHISTIOCYTES]

Thank you for macro keys!

[Dotnick]

Yes.

[cijanzen]

[Kawamashi]

Cries in micons

[krautcat]

Nice.

[CardinalityTV]

Beautiful stuff as always, Zambumon.

[yenel]

Loving the macro expansion kit and f13 support!

[Dorney]

Yes.

[Bachoo]

Insta cop 

[Cahuib23]

I usually don't like yellow, but Serika makes it look great!  + those artisans are amazing! nice job!

[powwu]

oh no how will I sell rare set on mechmarket for $700 now

[Coneree]

coppin that latin kit! Nice work!

[martensson]

Joined R1 GB, then sold it, regretted it, and will join R2 again now. Will not do the same mistake twice.

[Pwner]

Looks promising

[Puddsy]

Looks promising

agree i think this set has some good potential

[Zambumon]

If anyone wants a render of GMK Serika on a pink Alice keyboard, go ahead and ask Puddsy.

[whirlwind]

Nice

[Hyphen]

I've been waiting for this!

[hotnoodle666]

Y E A H ! ! !

[LONGZILLA]

Eagerly been waiting for this

[bball2]

Definitely in for a set! Loving the rama cap as well 

[FireLock]

NorDe.. THANK YOU!

And the 660 type support is really appreciated!

[VXQN]

No micons and no penrose triangle

[ilikerustoo]

I'm in

[keeganzero]

Aw ****, here we go again.

[Puddsy]

If anyone wants a render of GMK Serika on a pink Alice keyboard, go ahead and ask Puddsy.

imagine me owning a keyset with legends couldn't be me

[Zambumon]

No micons and no penrose triangle

- I don't want to include any alternate modifiers kits and instead focus on offering more layout support for the two core kits and the extension kits. Having those alternate modifiers would end up with partial layout support which is something I actively want to avoid.
- I wasn't happy with how the prior novelties looked when installed on a keyboard and when I made MT3 Serika I decided to update them not only to make them more proportional to the rest of the modifiers but to match my current logo and I'm really happy with how they look now.

[konstantin]

Hi there, please consider using the correct sublegends on the 0)をわ and -_ほー keys. They should look like this:



Note the regular size を (small を doesn't exist in hiragana) and the additional ー (which is a Japanese prolonged sound mark, not a regular dash). With this change, your set will have correct support for standard ANSI-based JP layouts (reference). See sets like GMK βeta, GMK Bentō R2, GMK Mecha-01, GMK JIS for examples of this in action.

It would also be nice to see the R4 \¦む and \¦ keys changed to R4 <> so that ISO users don't get duplicate keys.

Your kitting looks good, although I'm not a big fan of bundling the macro keys with the extension kit.

Edit: fixed link
Edit2: just noticed that one of the board renders already has the correct size を, so I guess you might have already planned on fixing these

[sirieous]

Been keen for this set to return for the longest time. Nice to see that it's finally time.

[darthcapn]

Have been waiting for this! In!!

Sent from my SM-G988U using Tapatalk

[harlekein]

I'm just here to watch the /r/mm inflation crash.

[Zambumon]

I'm just here to watch the /r/mm inflation crash.

This is not the place to watch that.

Hi there, please consider using the correct sublegends on the 0)をわ and -_ほー keys. They should look like this:

Show Image

Show Image

Note the regular size を (small を doesn't exist in hiragana) and the additional ー (which is a Japanese prolonged sound mark, not a regular dash). With this change, your set will have correct support for standard ANSI-based JP layouts (reference). See sets like GMK βeta, GMK Bentō R2, GMK Mecha-01, GMK JIS for examples of this in action.

It would also be nice to see the R4 \¦む and \¦ keys changed to R4 <> so that ISO users don't get duplicate keys.

Your kitting looks good, although I'm not a big fan of bundling the macro keys with the extension kit.

Edit: fixed link
Edit2: just noticed that one of the board renders already has the correct size を, so I guess you might have already planned on fixing these

As you have pointed out, some of the renders (the ones with Sar) address your を concern. This is because, with the launch of Sar, I have been migrating all my renders from one engine to another as well as remaking all the assets and tweaking legends to be more accurate to what they really should be. I'll most likely update the renders and add ー later this week.



There are some tweaks that I want GMK to do for GMK Serika and future Latin + Hiragana keycap sets, I don't want to go into lots of details but here is what I'd like to do:

1. Fix the num row to make it consistent with the rest of the sets: the numbers and symbols must have the exact same size and position as its Latin counter part.
2. Actually using the Cherry legends, which is very noticeable with ~, some of the alphas (Z, X, O...), other punctuation marks such comma, dot, <, >, ? and significantly the brackets and braces. This is something that for the first round or Striker wasn't able to fix and I'd really like to change for this round.

A side by side comparison makes those issues more noticeable:

[konstantin]

There are some tweaks that I want GMK to do for GMK Serika and future Latin + Hiragana keycap sets, I don't want to go into lots of details but here is what I'd like to do:

1. Fix the num row to make it consistent with the rest of the sets: the numbers and symbols must have the exact same size and position as its Latin counter part.
2. Actually using the Cherry legends, which is very noticeable with ~, some of the alphas (Z, X, O...), other punctuation marks such comma, dot, <, >, ? and significantly the brackets and braces. This is something that for the first round or Striker wasn't able to fix and I'd really like to change for this round.

A side by side comparison makes those issues more noticeable:

Show Image

Show Image

These are some very welcome changes, and you have my full support. Just like the を and missing ー, the sizing inconsistencies of primary and secondary legends on the number and punctuation keys are something that has been bothering me ever since GMK Laser R1 and GMK Serika R1 first ran. However, this has always been too large of a change to reasonably ask for in ICs, so I am glad that one designer is finally taking it upon themselves to see this corrected for future sets. Massive props for that. Your efforts will not go unappreciated, especially by those who of us who care about minute legending details like this a whole lot.

As you have pointed out, some of the renders (the ones with Sar) address your を concern. This is because, with the launch of Sar, I have been migrating all my renders from one engine to another as well as remaking all the assets and tweaking legends to be more accurate to what they really should be. I'll most likely update the renders and add ー later this week.

Sounds good, thank you.

[Oblotzky]

Always love when new designers enter the hobby and create great stuff  wishing you the best with this project! I'll be picking up at least one set, that's for sure.

[LightningXI]

Always love when new designers enter the hobby and create great stuff  wishing you the best with this project! I'll be picking up at least one set, that's for sure.

Who's that Zambumon guy in your signature? New guy too?

[VXQN]

No micons and no penrose triangle

- I don't want to include any alternate modifiers kits and instead focus on offering more layout support for the two core kits and the extension kits. Having those alternate modifiers would end up with partial layout support which is something I actively want to avoid.
- I wasn't happy with how the prior novelties looked when installed on a keyboard and when I made MT3 Serika I decided to update them not only to make them more proportional to the rest of the modifiers but to match my current logo and I'm really happy with how they look now.

Absolutely fair enough on both counts, those were just my favourite parts of serika R1 so I'm sad to see them go (mostly I just want a dang micon mod set).

[Zambumon]

Updated renders.

[manzel]

Exciting to hear about the planned changes to make all the legends consistent. This always bothered me on R1. Now, you are really making me think to get the second iteration as well. Which makes me come to my issues with that:

1. As much as I prefer the clean look of numpads without sublegends, next to the busy alphas of the Hiragana Core it looks out of place. Have you thought about offering numpad sublegends in the Hiragana Core, while keeping the clean look in the Latin Core?
2. Really no option for mod-colored tilde and pipe at all?
3. I am always a fan of big base kits and liked the R1 base better for that reason. But this is just how times have changed, I guess. At least the removed stuff (1.5u Codes, stepped Ctrl, additional Shifts, additional nav cluster rows) is still available in the expansion kit.

[bball2]

2. Really no option for mod-colored tilde and pipe at all?

+1 for this request as well! 

I always like having the option to keep things looking a bit more symmetrical left to right with this.

[Zambumon]

Exciting to hear about the planned changes to make all the legends consistent. This always bothered me on R1. Now, you are really making me think to get the second iteration as well. Which makes me come to my issues with that:

1. As much as I prefer the clean look of numpads without sublegends, next to the busy alphas of the Hiragana Core it looks out of place. Have you thought about offering numpad sublegends in the Hiragana Core, while keeping the clean look in the Latin Core?
2. Really no option for mod-colored tilde and pipe at all?
3. I am always a fan of big base kits and liked the R1 base better for that reason. But this is just how times have changed, I guess. At least the removed stuff (1.5u Codes, stepped Ctrl, additional Shifts, additional nav cluster rows) is still available in the expansion kit.

1. The reason why I started dropping those legends on my most recent sets (Nautilus 2, Lux, and now Serika 2) is that I really like the EXT 65 mirrored numpad and having sublegends makes the 4 and 6 numbers have the arrows pointing inwards. Removing them solved that issue and I think it's a reasonable compromise. I have no plans to offer an alternate set of numpad alphas or having different numpads for each of the base kits.




2. Yes.
3. This is always a game of balancing layout support and pricing. Core kits will be $110/115€

[manzel]

That is indeed a reasonable argument for the numpad without sublegends. Thanks for explaining.

[lac29]

Kinda a separate question but do ppl really use the numpad with the reversed numbering? I get the reverse other keys but I would imagine that's quite difficult to get used to.

[noorejji]

On one hand I want Zambumon to re-run old classics.
On the other hand I want Zambumon to create new classics.

[dom]

On one hand I want Zambumon to re-run old classics.
On the other hand I want Zambumon to create new classics.

Same feelings here ... especially for the GMK Jamón 

[Pach]

It's finally time