As a newcomer to the game, I've been interested in seeing what people do to organize their various counters used with the game. Some use baggies (lilke I've been doing), and others use pill holders (like those used to sort and keep daily doses of vitamins, etc.). After Wayne (das Phantom) posted his home-made game console recently, it reminded me that I had some cigar boxes stored away somewhere, and I dug two out - one is definitely on its way to becoming my home-made console, and the other seemed ideal to use for separating and storing all of the game counters needed to track events in the game. And since both boxes are the same, they'd fit nicely together as "mine" on the table.
Here's the box before starting. The sides and top were sanded to remove the logo and lettering from the cigar brand - luckily they were just printed on rather than engraved into the box like some are.
I next used balsa wood to divide the interior up into twelve sections. It was pretty simple to do once I'd decided how many sections I wanted. Balsa is so easy to work with, and with an x-acto saw and #11 blade in my knife, along with some sandpaper and Elmer's glue, it didn't take long to put it together.
I gave the box two coats of the same Polyshades acrylic/stain sealer I used on my damage deck caddy, as I thought it would be good to seal it before I began painting it. I also painted the interior in some leftover acrylic interior house paint I had - it's a light cream color that I really like as an interior color (I've used it before to paint the insides of some shelf sets - it is a great backdrop for toy soldiers and painted models and figures). A picture of the interior comes later...
Once the sealer had dried, I used white tracing paper to trace the "Wings of War" logo onto the top.
Here's the logo painted in Vallejo off-white - I hemmed and hawwed over the color and decided white would 'pop' nicely on the wood's color. It took two coats to get the color opaque enough for my tastes. Then I used Zoe Brain's 5-color lozenge colors and pattern she posted a little while ago - I wanted to paint lozenge 'fabric' on the corners, so I printed off her file and photocopied it several times so I could cut and tape the pattern together to get a 'piece' large enough to use as a pattern. I have several pages full of the pattern now to use on future projects.
The upper right corner is the top color scheme and the bottom left is the lower color scheme. I took Zoe's color descriptions and a color copy to my local hobby shop and picked out colors from the Vallejo rack to get as close a possible to the printed version. I wanted to get bottles of the base colors so I could be consistent with the colors on future projects. I only got the five colors I needed for the top wing pattern, as I planned to use them or others I had at home to mix for the bottom colors. I debated only painting the flap of the box (which opens), but I decided to carry the pattern over onto the edge. Again, I used white tracing paper to trace the pattern onto the upper left corrner. Then I painted it completely before tracing the pattern onto the lower left and painting it.
Here's the painted interior - you can see the pattern on the edges of the box. All that remains to do is put a sealer coat over the exterior and affix a 'legend' over the logo on the interior of what each section contains - I'm now in the process of deciding how I want to organize the counters.
I have also been working on my hand-made console - I'll post pictures of it once I've finished - the interior is done, and it's painted in the same cream as my counter box, but I'm not yet sure what the exterior's going to look like. I also like Wayne's idea of putting felt tabs on the bottom of the boxes, and I'll add those to both when I'm finished.
Wayne's console got me thinking about how I might do my own, and since I found two of the same boxes, I thought I'd try out some ideas on an accessories box to go along with the console. In addition to playing the game and painting/repainting models, I really like doing these sorts of things to go along with the game. Thanks for looking!
All the best,
Matt
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