I learned it’s called a shock mount

What is the last thing you learned?

I’m learning all the time, but this is the most recent thing that’s been kind of useful.

I can’t now remember why I was watching the video this still is from. It’s about The Beatles and I am having one of my periodic bouts of listening to Les Quatres Fantastique¹ a lot.

What struck me was the image of the presenter’s t shirt with the mike in front. It looked like he had a microphone print on his top. Would there be a market for such a design?

The only way to find out is to do it.

So I had to find a good image of this thing to act as a reference without knowing what the cage thing around the mike is called. After a bit of searching on the Google I found out: it’s a shock mount.

Its purpose is to absorb knocks and bumps and so reduce noise while recording. There’s a metal or plastic cage and the mike is held in a cradle of elastic to keep it in place. Hooks keep the tension in the elastic and reduce movement.

So it was into Blender I went to model the shock mount and a microphone. I’d made a microphone before for Steve the stand-up orc. This mike is a simpler design, it’s the mount that’s the interesting bit.

I think it took me an hour to get the shapes done and looking satisfactory. Not bad. Then shading was fairly simple, block colours except the mike sponge² which has a noise texture added to the displacement to give it some texture.

The final version needed a background. If it’s printed as a dark object then it won’t look good on a dark t-shirt, so I added a plane behind the microphone and worked out how to give the plane a blue colour in the centre and fade to transparent at the edge. That way there’s a colour behind the mike whatever colour the t shirt is.

I’ll probably do a couple of other colours as background. The brown on the original presenter’s t-shirt might be a good option, as used in the featured image.

It’s up on RedBubble as a T-shirt with the blue background. I’m adopting the motto ‘real artists ship’, so I don’t sit on designs hoping they might mature and improve.

1. As they’re known in France. ↩︎
2. Also known as a pop shield or spoffle. ↩︎