We have admired the laser cut designs created by Obuq for some time. It was only this year after joining him on Patreon that we started chatting decided to feature him as one of our ‘Meet the Makers’.
Hi Obuq, can you tell us a little about yourself and how you got interested in designing projects for laser cutting?
I discovered laser-cutting a bit by accident. In 2014 I had just finished my degree in Sculpture at Lisbon’s Fine-Arts, and Portugal was still recovering from the economic crisis. There were tough austerity measures in place and they had been around for a few years now, things were pretty bad. Looking for a job I found Fablab Lisboa, discovered the laser-cutter and kind of got addicted to it.
The guys at Fablab Lisboa were pretty cool and they are very open and accessible. I started making laser-cutting workshops there, and little by little, the small tests that I was making in the laser-cutter started to become products. To get some extra penny I started selling those products in a few open air markets and Obuq was born (around 2016).
That was 6 years ago, things have changed a bit. Right now, I don’t have the amount of time I wish I had to develop Obuq. Still, I don’t think I ever stop designing for laser-cutting completely.
Your designs can be very intricate and instructions are detailed. How much time goes into creating your designs and instructions?
A long time!
A lot of factors help this. First of all, in every design I try to push myself a bit more. Try new things, make it aesthetically cool, etc. This tends to involve more tests, more prototypes and more time. Another thing I know that takes a lot of time but I can’t help it is that I like to draw things in 2D. I enjoy drawing in Illustrator, period. I’ve tried to design things in SolidWorks, in Fusion 360… all the constrains in drawing and assembly just bored me a lot. I also wished I had more time to give Obuq, and all this things tend to make each design take some time.
Which of your designs has been the most involved / complicated and why?
Difficult to pin point, a lot of them. I would say maybe the robot design – Obot.
It was my first try on movement, on an articulated design, on a larger scale – Obot has 232 pieces and about 20 articulations (don’t remember exactly).
It took around a year to design (note that it wasn’t the only design during this period).
What projects do you have on the horizon?
There is a new one coming out were I think I’ve finally managed to solve a way to hold position on articulated joints. I won’t give any more spoilers!
Thank you, Obuq
Thank you for taking the time to chat and tell us about yourself. We look forward to your next creations!
Our readers will be happy to know that Obuq has been kind enough to allow us to share some of his projects for Emblaser users. We will be adding more over the coming weeks.
To keep up with Obuq’s projects, visit him on his Patreon page.
