Portal Tissue Box

Tissues come in boring boxes so why not put a geeked out cover on top of it? Why not indeed.

I recently saw this project on Kanojo.de and figured that I could easily do a version in acrylic with the help of a laser cutter. It also helps to make one big change which is to swap the Aperture icon on top for the blue Portal icon.

So where's the orange portal? On the inside of the box. Had to be consistent.

Here's how it was made.

Step 1 Laser cutting the acrylic

This whole project uses 1.5 sq ft of 1/4" white acrylic and was cut on an Epilog Legend 36EXT.

The square and Portal cutouts were done in the normal way. Blasting with the laser until it was cut through. For the designs on the tops of the pieces, I did a light vector cut and peeled away the positive, leaving the safety film as a stencil.

Big, big thanks to Zeptozephyr at deviantART for making the vector files I used.

Comments

[n0ukf]

How many of us know someone with a laser cutter... let alone have one ourselves?

[IHaveNoBudget]

to aim the laser, use the thermal discouragement beam redirection cube

[superfli68]

You can use a vinyl cutter and use vinyl instead of paint. If you don't have a vinyl cutter just about every mall these days has a kiosk where they cut vinyl.

[kderusha]

Lol, I dunno where you live, but here in New York, no mall has a vinyl cutting kiosk (at least not from upstate to Albany. New York City might). However, anyone who considers using vinyl could ask around town to see if they could borrow one of those "Cricut" machines. They cut vinyl, but for a one-time project aren't really worth the price tag.

[n0ukf]

The only Cricut machines I've seen anywhere (Walmart, Kmart, etc) so far only have preprogrammed graphics, which I'm willing to bet don't include Portal graphics.

[kderusha]

Yes, cricut machines come with pre-programmed graphics, but for any hard-core artist (certainly any one willing to drop 200 dollars on a fancy cutting machine) will usually spring for the design studio, as well, which allows you to design your own graphics on a computer. Yes, designing portal graphics would be illegal, but anyone who wants a portal tissue box will just have to accept that fact and, you know, do it anyway.

[ayralu]

I can help you to cut it with laser. lol

[fungus amungus]

Use the tools you have. I have access to a laser cutter so I did it this way. If not you can use a service like Ponoko.

The project that I got the idea from used MDF. It's just a box.

[canucksgirl]

Lucky guy in Tennessee :)

Very creative, especially your magnetic design for the base. Great Job!

[JeanKnox]

Very cool.

[Misac-kun]

Looks cool and professional! the laser cuting really does the diference!

[PotatoCoffee]

Cool!

[ayralu]

Ooh. I can do acrylic tissue box too.

[fungus amungus]

Do it!

[ayralu]

lol But yours are more beautiful,

[monsterlego]

Well done fungus!

[fungus amungus]

Thanks!

[colorex]

Nice project! Amazing idea! I like how you stay true with the orange portal :)

[fungus amungus]

Thanks, I had to have the orange portal in there as well. Would've been incomplete without.

Was also considering putting some of the graffiti from the first game on the inside like "the cake is a lie" and such, but ran out of time and didn't find great source material to match it closely.

[scott098]

I was thinking of making one out of 6mm ply, and gluing printed icons on.

[fungus amungus]

Post a picture here if you make it!

[mikeasaurus]

What a neat idea to spruce up a boring tissue box, awesome!