Future Schlock by Alex Ftoulis

Future Schlock by Alex Ftoulis

Original Project Log: Here
As far as modders go, few are more dedicated and enthusiastic than Alex Ftoulis. His first project, called AnG3L after his forum name, narrowly missed out on a podium finish in last year's Mod of the Year competition. This was quickly followed by the awesome-looking ToTecHniKa, which was one of the most amazing wood-based mods we've ever seen. Just in time for Mod of the Year, though, Alex is back with his most ambitious project yet - a water-cooled scratch-built PC, backed up by some hefty sponsorship, primarily from Razer.

In fact, this is where the project's name emanates from - Future Schlock is inspired by and named after the book by R.M Krakoff - founder and president of Razer Group Ltd. Rather than plaster the case in images and CNC-cut-outs of mice and keyboards, or maybe taking a leaf from its animal-related naming schemes for its products, Alex came up with an original design which is very different indeed to his usual style. All we know is that Future Schlock is one of the best looking and most popular projects we've seen in 2010. It's over to Alex for a walk through of how Future Schlock was made:

A big hello to my fellow PC enthusiasts and case modders. My name is Alex Ftoulis aka AnG3L, and I've been case modding since 2004. I am here to present to you my latest Project called Future Schlock. I officially started posting my work online at 2009, with my first major project - AnG3L. I followed this up in 2010 with ToTecHniKa.



Lets talk about my latest creation. Future Schlock is based on Roberts Krakoff (Razer's CEO and founder) book, Future Schlock. The book follows two Polish laborers, three nominees for President, five Naval Admirals, an ambitious Minister of Finance for the African Union, and a beautiful Masai woman, through a much-changed world during a cut-throat fight for the Presidency in 2047. It's an interesting view of the future and was the focus of my original designs.

I'd been working for two months, 12 hours a day on the initial designs by the time I even started work and posting my first updates on bit-tech. I was torn between making a very complicated and extreme mod, and a neat, clean and simpler one. I based my idea on the future, to fit in with the books theme. The first thing to establish was what does the future look like? I like to think of it as a mix of fear and mystery, essentially a gothic theme.
I had to combine specific elements from the book and also from this concept.


Each generation has its own design styles. Flowers, colours and peace signs from the 1960's for example. Also there are design patterns from older generations that are repeated such as tribalism - tribal designs on tattoos, appliqués and clothes etc.

So I came up with a geometrical element of the future - the Circle. I've been studying circle theory for many years now (read about it here) and felt it was key for me to begin designing my mod. As much as I found this fascinating, building the case based on the circular theory proved to be a step too far. I would end up with a huge and not very functional case. So I decided to start by drawing designs for the air ventilation holes and also for the radiator grills. I wanted to make something new and also develop the design as the project progressed as I didn't want to use the same pattern in all of the rad grills and ventilation points. This wasn’t an easy task at all.