So there's a story behind this one:
I was in Borders Books last night looking for some 3x3s, and it turns out that they have Eastsheen 4x4s in there with a sticker variation, sold by Paperchase. $14.99? Hell yes in a can. I came home with it, and later that night I happened upon the original design of the babyface cube by skeneegee. I was amazed at the cleverness of his design.

Four hours of work today, some tin snips, and plastic sheet resulted in:

(click for large images)



You can see the old stickers in the back of these images. Odd stickers - ice cream cones, cars, butterflies, planes? I dunno.


More images attached. This thing is really fun to play with!

Nice! Looks like the exact same core I use for the Rhombiminx. How does it fare for the babyface?

Cute =)

nice work

Thanks! It's a fun and easy build, you should make one while you're waiting for some of your many plastic molds to dry.

Professor of the Professor's Cube: It's probably the same core, since they're the same puzzle at heart - I cut off most of the non-mechanism parts on the edges and corners. The mechanism works just fine, but I didn't cut down one corner far enough and it kept getting stuck between two of the face panels. 60 grit on a popsicle stick fixed that right quick.

Looking at this I can see the basis of a large 2x2x4 and other mods.

Yes, it seems that simpler is better. For my first rhombiminx, I fully rounded off each layer, which was very time consuming and messy. For my second I just cut off all but the mechanism just like you did here, and it turns better with less lockups. I reduced the core building time from 3 hours to 45 minutes with that change.

For making a Babyface though I would prefer to have a larger cube while having the internal 4x4 unmodified. IMO it would just add to the theme of the puzzle if it looked like those lego "Duplo" blocks

I just wanted to say awesome build and thank you! I noticed those cubes at Borders but wasn't sure of the quality, and for $14.99 I didn't wanna buy a horrible 4x4. I'm going to get one now though.

Yep, they are definitely worth the buy. It's an Eastsheen cube under those weird stickers, 100%! Mine was smooth out of the box, just like from huskyomega. Can't beat a $15 cube with no shipping time. Thanks for the compliment, btw.

nice build


Andrew

Wouldn't solving it be exactly like solving the centers for a 4x4?I bet it is, and nice job on it.

Yes, but the point of it is the aesthetics, not the solution.


Great job, it looks awesome!

Personally I enjoy solving centers the most, so this puzzle would be perfect for me

does anyone have the guts to make a 5x5 baby face from a V7?

I have the guts to make a 3x3 version...

If I had a 5x5

That would be something to see.

Would you make the panels like differently-sized rectangles? (larger for corner cubes, small one in the middle) Or would you go with a design that looks like a Brillicube with a center square? I think both may work, but the second one is centers-independent like the original Babyface.

I made a second one!

Made this for my cousin, who picked the color scheme for it as well. Click for larger image.

All 6 faces of the new cube ^ and v

Colors comparison: first cube at left, new one at right

Scrambulated


Smoother than the first, because I truncated the mechanism parts deeper than before, and more uniformly. Four hours of work done again.