Home-made Dice

 Last weekend I finally got around to making some more dice.  Here's how I did it...

Materials:
Polaroid inkjet photo-paper from Poundland
Blank dice from Witzigs shop on Amazon (99p for 10)
A laser printer (I used a friend's)
Scissors
Iron*
Ironing board or other heat-resistant surface
Pan scourer

*Note: The iron will be HOT! Exercise caution and don't put it face-down somewhere and get distracted by your dice!  The dice cool fairly quickly, I was able to handle them with bare fingers the whole time but if you aren't sure, use gloves or other protection.

1) Work out your designs.  Text needs to be reversed - you can type it into a text box in word, then reverse the image.  That way, once you're ironed it on, the text will be the right way round!

2) Print out designs on inkjet photo paper.  Laser photo paper won't work!  You need the glossy inkjet surface.  Print out a test page first with a pencil mark in the top left corner so that you know which way up you need to insert the paper and can check the size of symbols against your die.  Don't print too many sheets at once, I have heard that if the printer gets too hot, the coating of the paper can come off inside and gum things up.

Ready to go!

2) Cut the symbols into sets of 6. I didn't cut them all out in one go - less chance of accidentally putting the wrong mix of symbols on!

Snip snip...

3) Carefully position the symbol on the face of your die (ink side down) and iron with gentle pressure for 10-15 seconds.  I use medium heat. Try and place the iron directly onto the die and keep it very still so you don't smear the image.

Iron for 10-15 seconds on medium heat.

4) Reposition the die and continue ironing on the bits of paper until you've done all 6 sides.

Turn the die and add more symbols.

5) Allow the dice to cool for a couple of minutes so the ink sets in completely.  If you're doing several, the first ones should be cool by the time you've done the last one.

Leave dice to cool.

6) Carefully peel off the paper.  Your image should be visible on the die.

Remove paper.

Nearly finished!

 

Ready for cleaning.

The removed bits of paper - still some traces of ink left.

There will still be a layer of film from the paper over the images on your die, so they will look very pale.

Pale die symbols.

Comparison between die and originals.

7) Wet your dice and give a gentle rub with the pan scourer to remove the last traces of paper film.

Half wet, half dry!

Start scrubbing!

8) Your finished dice - start rolling!

I've been making dice for 2 games here.  Heroquest (resized to 90% original size so they fit better than the trial die that I made in April) and Tomorrow's War / Force on Force casualty dice (the underscored ones are for trained medical aid which result in a better recovery rate).  A few came out slightly wonky or off-centre but at about 11p each I can afford to make lots of spares anyway.

Matchbox repaints - Frost Fighter

A few months ago I finished repainting a couple of Matchbox "Frost Fighter" vehicles.  These are presumably inspired by some of the various tracked Land Rover versions which have appeared over the years.  They'll be ideal vehicles for pioneering explorers on low-tech colony worlds.  They have already appeared in the background of one or two of my battle reports.

The yellow one is your basic exploration model, brightly coloured so it's easy to locate.

Decals from GW Space Marines and an old Italeri "F19 Stealth Fighter".

GZG Ravager for scale.

Additional stowage in the form of a resin crate, Brigade Models jerry cans and a hand sculpted stowage roll.

I'd imagine the orange vehicle being some sort of mining survey, hence the explosive warning marking on the back door.  Must be carrying geological survey charges or something similar.

Brigade Models jerry cans, The Scene ammo box, hand sculpted canvas roll and a short piece of chain.

Another GZG Ravager for scale.

Decals from random model kits plus Veni Vidi Vici hazard markings.

The 2 repaints plus an original model.

Headlamp detail.

Rear view.  Brigade Models jerry can, Chieftain stowage bin from a now-defunct 1/72 company.

At some point one or other of them will probably be the focal piece of scenery for a game scenario - the expedition has gone missing, leaving behind their vehicle (and perhaps a couple of 15mm.co.uk's wrecked tents), search the surrounding area and rescue them from whoever (or whatever) has captured them...

Rescue the Wizard!

Alas!  The home of the Emperor's wizard has been seized by the forces of evil!  Can our heroes rescue him?

Into the dungeon they go - an Orc is sighted!

Barbarian trades blows with the Orc but is victorious!

Elf leads the way down the corridor.  In the background looms a pit where the Barbarian fell to his doom, slain by Orc guards!

What's through this door... the guard room!  2 Goblins and an Orc!  The Elf and Dwarf are slain in the ensuing struggle!

The Halfling checks the prison cells - here is the Wizard!

"Thank you young adventurer - now let's get those Goblins!"

Guards defeated, Wizard and his Templar from the adjoining cell head for the armoury.

The Wizard restores the Dwarf to life, he and Halfling continue towards the next corridor.

A Beastman blocks the way through the Wizard's study - until he is incinerated with a fireball!

Useful spell ingredients here!

Into the grand chamber where Chaos Warriors prove no obstacle to our heroes.

The store-room, guarded by a Beastman.

"Bugman's Ale!" cries the Dwarf, "I'm quaffing some of that!"

The Wizard heads for his bed chamber to fetch more spells.

The Wizard's wall of stone blocks 2 Beastmen but more come from the other corridor...

Look out Halfling!

Is this where the Beastmen came from?

Look out - two more hiding round the corner!

The Dwarf falls once more - and the other Beastmen start to break through the wall of stone...

Re-animated once more, the Dwarf presses on, slaying first the Beastmen, then some Goblins.

The Halfling foolishly opens the tomb.  Good job the Templar is a fearsome warrior.

Their mission competed, our heroes head for the surface.

The complete dungeon - entrance bottom right, exit far left.

GZG droids

Some more droids from GZG, pack SQ15-V16 Humanoid Bots.  I've gone for the standard gold protocol droid type colour scheme on the first two servant robots.  The photograph hasn't come out particularly well, they do look a lot golder in person!  I've used a dark brown base coat rather than black so that the contrast isn't so stark.

The big cargo handler droid has an industrial type yellow colour scheme.  I assume you'd want it to be easy to see when it's walking around carrying large objects.

I'll be painting the duplicates in more varied colours, in particular I was thinking white/pink on the middle one for a Futurama style Fem-bot!

Heroquest dice

 Although Heroscape dice have similar symbols to the Heroquest dice, they aren't quite the same so I thought it would be good to try and create some more proper Heroquest dice.  Being a cheapskate, I want to spend as little money as possible so I decided that it was time to experiment with making my own dice.  I've read about it on various web sites but I wasn't sure how easy it would be in practice.

Looks pretty good from this side.

First stop was some dice.  I got 3 bags of 10 blank dice from Witzigs on Amazon for the bargain price of 99p per bag.  Next was some inkjet photo paper.  10 sheets of Polaroid inkjet paper from Poundland - ideal!

Hmm... these ones slightly off-centre!

Third was to find some decent inages of the HQ dice.  I could have photographed/scanned mine but it only took a moment to find some images on the internet and copy/paste them into a larger image to fill a page.

Monster defend symbol slightly smudged!

The page of symbols was printed onto the photo paper using a laser printer.  Because I've used inkjet paper not laser paper, the ink stays on the surface coating.  Cut out the symbol, place face down on a blank side of the die, press with a hot iron for 5 seconds.. voila!  The piece of paper is now stuck to the die!  A gentle tug peels off the paper leaving the ink on the die.  The heat from the iron has caused the heat transfer ink to fuse with the surface of the die.  Some of the inkjet film is still stuck on top, leaving a faintly milky surface but a hard scrub with some soap and a scouring pad removes this fairly quickly.

Because this was the first try, the results aren't perfect.  Some of the symbols are off-centre and some have smudged because I wasn't sure how long to apply heat.  Despite this, as a proof-of-concept I'd say it's very succesful and once I've re-sized the symbols slightly I shall be producing some more dice.

Now I just need to think of what else I can do.  I'm thinking that casualty dice for Force on Force/Tomorrow's War will be useful.