Hello all,
First of all: This is just a theory, i cannot provide you with pictures as i am still trying to get the best results. So just a theory i would like to hear your oppinion:
Ok, I am trying to create homemade, good looking and durable custom dice. As i can't and don't want to afford a professional die casting company, i tought about turning blank wooden dice into a really good looking self-made alternative. Im describing the production process now and would like to hear if and how you think this could be improved.
1. Assume we have enough cheap, wooden d6 with flat surfaces available. The dice are clean and without any scratches.
2. Lets use miniature painting colors (like those from warhammer wich i am using right now). We ground all dice in black (warhammer chaos black spray).
3. Now we use the colors we like (red, blue etc. or 2+ colors at a time) and drybrush (common miniatures paint technique) the dice. This way they look really cool and menacing because black parts are still showing through, wich lets the dice look much more textured.
4. We now use transparent foil (self-adhesive) and a very good printer to print symbols (monochrome) onto it. Then we cut the foil into exact circles. The foil is now peeled of and the self-adhesive symbols are applied to the die faces.
5. Finally we use a varnish spray to seal both the dice and the foil on it. This also makes the dice more durable when used for games.
Tada! Homemade Custom Dice par excellence! I know its much work and maybe its not worth it, but here are some good points:
1. They look really cool. believe me, my first tests are fantastic! The only thing is that you must choose the color of the dice not too dark, otherwise you wont recognize the symbols anymore (as they are black due to black ink/printer).
2. Built in anti-cheat: If someone would remove the self-adhesive sticker from one side of the die, it not only destroys the foil (beyond further use) but also crumbles the dice paint (texture). so once assembled, its not possible to remove and re-arrange the dice surfaces anymore without destroying the whole object.
okay thats all, just wanted to share my experiences with custom dice building!
