custom steam controller asteroid button set

THROWBACK - Custom Steam Controller Asteroid Button Sets

Rediscover a gem from our past blog—a feature on the custom Asteroid-themed Steam Controller buttons. To the fresh faces in the Steam community or those who missed the Steam Controller's heyday, consider this a glimpse into the promising horizon for our Steam Deck Buttons.

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One thing I really like about this old blog is showing the Photography aspect.  It's a time consuming step in the release of a new product, and often goes unnoticed. 
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image showing cup of steam controller asteroid prototypes

13.

That’s the number of tries it took to get these right. That’s 91 individual buttons, 91(+) individual tiny rocks placed in a mold with tweezers, and tons and tons of hours of pouring, mixing, throwing these in and out of a pressure pot, etc..

While some of our buttons can be made with a single mix/pour, these buttons cannot due to the amount of layers involved. Each layer has a purpose and each layer needs to be poured and cured separately. For context the cure time is an hour per layer. Some layers have special pigments added in to give certain effects.

rocks on table

Prepping the rocks:

Each rock starts off from a much bigger rock that I hammer down. From there I break apart each piece by hand to make them fit in each button spot in the molds. Safe to say my fingers aren’t the softest anymore!

image showing photo setup for custom steam controller button set

Photography:

I knew that I wanted to do something creative with the photography on these ones. I went with 3 lights, some dry ice, some potting soil, and the bigger rocks that I will end up breaking up later to make more buttons. All of this on a piece of glass over a black sheet. My goal was to make them look like they were in space / on the moon or something. 

Custom steam controller asteroid button set

custom asteroid steam controller button set

Conclusion:

I’m not sure why I wanted to spend so much time on these. I make things that I like and personally want to use. Truth be told there isn’t a huge market for Artisan Steam Controller buttons (yet??). It’s hard to make your own thing that nobody has made before; yet nobody has particularly asked for either. Hopefully someone out there digs these as much as I do. Thanks for stopping by!

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Editors note: 

It's funny reading this conclusion in 2023, on the weekend before releasing these custom Steam Deck buttons to the world.  I've poured so many hours and late nights into this project, have literal years of knowledge and casting expertise that I didn't have back then, and I still have the same feelings that I posted in this conclusion back in 2019. 

I guess the takeaway to me, is that bringing something truly unique to a market will always be a huge unknown.  It's a real risk financially, emotionally, and with the time invested.  I hope you can see the passion and dedication in my products, and am excited for everybody to get their hands on these! 

- G

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