If you didn’t already know, I’m a bit of a Dungeons & Dragons fan. When I was a kid, I ripped through every one of those giant books. I still remember getting dinged on a reading test in grade school because I pronounced the word “deb-riss”, only having run across the word from the mounds of treasure and “debris” I found in those books.
I searched high and low for other kids who wanted to play D&D — it was a big dorky backwater thing then, so it was hard to find other players. After a while, I gave up.
I put it out of my head until years later. After we’d started Glowforge, my kids asked me about the game, and we started playing together as a family. That lead to Glowforge-printed swords, dice towers, screens, and miniatures that, five years later, are still in use today.
So of course when the movie came out, we had to go see it. My kids brought their friends, players and skeptics alike. It was a hit - even the D&D doubters in our group loved it.
And like a lot of D&D sessions, it sparked inspiration.
If you’re unfamiliar, this many-toothed beast is called a mimic. It can disguise itself as any inanimate object, and especially loves to cloak itself as a treasure chest, waiting to snare the unwary adventurer.
We had to have one. Though maybe one with less-dangerous teeth. Maybe even a cute mimic.
It didn’t take long. I figured I could adapt a treasure chest design, give it some cute-deadly teeth, and pretty soon we had our monster.
Behold, weary adventurer, our Glowforge mimic:
I love this little guyI love it when inspiration strikes and you can zoop, zoop, hit a few buttons, and bring that idea to life. That’s something special.
Not to brag (well, maybe a little), but I showed it to a friend who’s an executive at Dungeons & Dragons (local company - my teenage self would be astonished), and they loved it.
We got to talking about how many Glowforge printers are in the hands of D&D people all over the world, and how both our companies are about inspiring creativity. I came back to D&D for a lot of reasons. It brings our family joy and lets us connect with one another. It lets us spend real, quality time with our kids as they’ve grown up (still playing, 5 years later). As my wife said when we first started: “I don’t know about dungeons or dragons, but if it involves sitting around the table and talking to our kids for three hours, I’m in.”
Over all of those years, the thread tying us together has been our love of creativity. We’re still finding new ways to create and explore, and I’m grateful for that.
New improvements!
And your mimic-making machine just keeps getting better.
First, you may have noticed that the Glowforge App is noticeably zippier. That’s not just your imagination! We’ve been working behind the scenes to make your workspace feel smoother and more responsive, especially if you’re working with a lot of parts. In some cases it’s a dramatic difference, and I’m so glad we can bring it to you. This is just our latest improvement to the free-for-life Glowforge Print software that comes with your Glowforge.
And for Premium subscribers, we continue to improve Magic Canvas! We’ve added a new art style, Sticker, so you can create cute, 2-D images that are ready to print. Creators are already making some really fun things with it, and I can’t wait to see what comes next.
That’s a guiding light for us: we’re always updating and growing and changing. We’re always looking to improve (you can see what we’ve been doing here) and make your experience the best it can be.
Thanks for being along for the ride.