Collaboration is one of my favorite things, and I’m one of the luckiest humans in the system to have opportunities to collaborate with one of my favorite people, my partner, Michael Lewis.

We recently teamed up again to create a custom Art Trophy, commissioned by a long-time Ruthfull patron. This patron had previously commissioned “Madhu’s Negotiation Spoon”, which I wrote about in my earlier blog post, pARTicipation Trophies.

This new trophy, finished in January 2020, was inspired by the theme, “Down with bureaucracy!” From there, Mike and I brainstormed a number of designs and finally landed on a fireman’s axe buried in a mountain of paperwork…

… after all, nothing says mindless bureaucracy like a bunch of unnecessary forms and meetings…

We tried to find an existing miniature fireman’s axe to use, but they were all the wrong size for what we wanted. So Mike 3D printed the axe and then sanded it smooth, cut it to appear partially submerged in the paper stack and then painted and sealed it. I made the tiny stacks of forms, graphs and agendas and have to give a big shout-out to the Youtube creator, Bentley House Minis and her easy-to-follow video tutorials on this exact topic:

Making the stacks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4GlDRL4UV0

Making the tiny printed pages in Photoshop: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3ash7SmyVY

It was super easy and fun! I’d be happy to make tiny stacks of paper for anyone looking to recreate this for a dollhouse or miniature scene!

Here are some close-ups of the papers and the axe as well some other angles:

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I got the base at the same shop where I get all my trophy nameplates made, including this one. That East LA shop is House of Trophies and they are the best!

I hope the receipent loved it! I even included his name, as well as the patron’s, in the papers… I wonder how long it will take them to notice!

This isn’t the first time Mike’s used his Ender 3 to contribute to these Art Trophies. He printed and painted a stack of pumpkins for the Mummy Trophy we made for the costume contest I held at the Trivia Night I host at a local bar in Eagle Rock, CA, Talon Tap & Wine:

He even added some tiny individual LEDs to the pumpkins to make them light up like true jack o’lanterns:

We are always up for another Art Trophy commission, so please contact us if you are thinking about giving one as a gift or a prize, or place an order through Etsy!