The Openkig project started as a discussion between Bramble Bunny and Flora in October 2016. As they both started chatting about the creative aspects of a 3D printed kig project Bramble had just debuted, two pieces of information became apparent. First; though in possession of a 3D printer, Bramble was having to scrounge around for a usable 3D model and ended up spending an exorbitant amount of time trying to augment said model to be a viable kig mask. Second; Flora was an avid digital sculptor hoping to one day get a 3D printer to put those skills to good use. These two facts suggested an obvious marriage of skills and equipment; Flora could create the models and Bramble could format and print them out.

Flora – The Sculptor Skele (Facebook)
When she began her journey in the kig community, she was convinced that she’d never be able to afford a kig of her own. In time, she decided to attempt homemade kigs as a means of overcoming the financial barrier. The first successful project to come of this was the unique sugarskull kig, Muerta, that she quickly became associated with. In many ways the Openkig project is an extension of this attempt to make homemade kigs with the added hope that it will lower the financial barrier for others as well. Her biggest joy in the openkig project is seeing her art come to life as a physical object in front of her which she still finds “super trippy and cool.”

BrambleBunny – The Techie (Facebook)
Though she often thinks of herself as the slavedriver of the two, Bramble excels in a lot of the technical aspects that are integral to Openkig. She’s able to format the sculptures into printable, latchable, sturdy masks and think through how to best go about printing them. She came up with the initial idea for Openkig as an opensource kig project and is responsible for many of the means of implementing that idea.