Custom carriers from OOB's and painted pieces

@LebaneseWarlord said in Need advice for custom dice DIY:

I’ve recently bought 96 dice because I wanted to make custom hit/miss dice for Global 40. I bought these dice from amazon and they’re plain blank and white dice.

I don’t have a lot of experience with DIY projects but I have access to a lot of good tools so I’m looking for advice regarding techniques on how to mark and repaint the dice I bought.

For the marking, I was thinking about using a rotary tool to carve a little dot.

The real challenge is the painting. I looked a lot on internet and I can’t seem to find a technique for painting on plastic that everyone agrees on, but here’s what I have so far.

Wash the dice to remove any grease that could be on the surface Use very fine sandpaper or some sort of abrasive to remove the protective finish that is on the dice right now and offer a better surface for the new paint to stick Wash the dice again the remove the dust from the paint removal Apply one or a few (I’m not sure about this one, I’ll read what is suggested on the can) of primer Apply a few thin layer of the color I want on the dice Paint a white dot in the carving I made earlier with a fine brush Apply one or a few (not sure about this one either, something will be suggested on the can) of clear finish to protect the paint

Any correction or suggestion would be very welcome!

Guys use RIT dye for color. Go to Siredblood’s custom dice you tube video. Shows how he used a jig to spot hole dice and then dye them

Hello everyone. I wanted to share my latest Essex class carrier customization.

Essex 1200x900.jpg

There is a famous picture of an Essex class carrier where the hull camouflage is prominently displayed. I wanted to reproduce this late war hull pattern for piece and give it a deck a similar style as my other US carriers.

Essex Carriers.jpg

I used this image as my source for port and starboard hull camouflage patterns and color scheme.

Essex Hull Camouflage Pattern.jpg

This game piece is from HBG and it is sold in 5 packs, so I gave them deck numbers 9-13.

Essex Port View 1200x900.jpg

Essex Starboard View 1200x900.jpg

I’ve added two magnets so they hold 2 aircraft each. You can find these on my site here.

@Cloudesley Infantrymen will fit on the roundels – so it’s easy to keep track, and I place them next to the board so everyone can see them to strategize

Love HGB……but $3-$4 a piece adds up

This may sound like an improbable source, but another idea would be for you to go to some local dollar stores and look around.  Back when I was making myself a dice tower, I discovered that some dollar store chains sell (among all the miscellaneous stuff they have in stock) some plain unpainted rectangular wooden trays of various sizes, made of very thin wood.  Their designs could not be simpler – a bottom and four sides glued together, all made of flat wooden pieces – and they’re cheap in both price and appearance, but they’re about the right size for what you have in mind and they would probably look quite nice if you applied some dark wood stain to them.  And because they’re so inexpensive, picking up as many as you need for your table would be very affordable.  It would also be easy to customize them by, for example, subdividing the larger models into sections by cutting some balsa wood sticks (or other types of woods) to suitable sizes and gluing them inside the trays before you stain them.

Anzac defender,

––Keep up the good work.
----I don’t know if you’re interested, but there is a company called I-94 Enterprises that make many, many decals that are useful for our A&A units.

Tall Paul

Nice tables guys, something for me to do in the future

@BluGerman:

today i managed to read through this year long forum thread and I have to ask what happened after November 17th 2011?.. did everybody in this forum mysteriously dissapear? or was it just discontinued? or was it moved to another forum thread or something?.. somebody please let me know because I was really excited to see Allworks whole board with his miniatures (they are awesome!)

In answer to your question- I don’t really know.  :? Allworkandnoclay is an artist who does all sorts of other work for money, not just Axis and Allies. I presume that he moved on to other work, as his Flickr account shows him doing some sculpting and what not. To be honest though, he stopped posting pics, people stopped commenting, and it sort of fell of the face of the earth. There’s some stuff on TallPaul’s page, and there are plenty of other artists with some awesome stuff if you need your daily fix of painted minis!