Gotta Say, the Maker Community Is Really Shining These Days

As the world struggles to deal with mandatory quarantines and isolation, the maker community is thriving and doing what it does best: churning out incredible, innovative, clever, and, sometimes, utterly terrifying creations.

Despite everything that’s going on, the consumer tech industry continues to chug along, with plenty of new products to look forward to as we slowly return to a somewhat-normal life in the months ahead. But those are products designed to appeal to the masses; what’s great about the inventions coming out of the maker community is that they’ve been designed and engineered to meet the very specific needs of the person who created them. More often than not, they’re also a fascinating peek into their creator’s brain, although it’s hard to imagine what’s going on inside the head of the person behind this skin-wrapped oversized dice with an animatronic blinking eye where the single pip should be.

The die was created by Japanese artist and DJ Shishido Mazafaka, aka Doooo, whose unsettling creations you’ve probably seen shared online many times before. Do you remember this eerily lifelike coin purse made from silicone featuring a mouth full of teeth that opens to gain access to the money stored inside? That was another one of Mazafaka’s nightmarish creations.

What drives Mazafaka to work in the medium of faux human skin is unknown, but that’s another reason why making for the sake of making can be such a joyful experience. You don’t really need a reason to create something new, just the urge to be creative, or to learn a new skill, or to answer the age-old question of what a cyclops baby born in the shape of a die would look like. Unfortunately, we now know.