Porkins' Dice Tower Tutorial

[Porkins]

I built a dice tower and I am really happy with how it turned out. I wanted to share with everybody.








I didn't decide to make a tutorial until I got into the project a bit, so I don't have pictures of the first few steps.

As I contemplated making a dice tower, I looked at a lot of threads from other people who had made dice towers or similar things to get some inspiration and ideas:

Raudulfr's Customs
Quack188's custom stuff (especially the Statue tutorial)
Mr. Crimson's dice tower
Dirtboy's dice towers
Leifkicker's stuff
Grungebob's Dungeon
Glenn's custom battlefields

I also asked lots of questions via PM's and in person to some of the experts, so I want to acknowledge those people:

Raudulfr Shieldcrusher
Leifkicker
Griffin
Agent Minivann
Soundwarp SG-1

So one day I was walking through a Michael's and saw the birdhouse used by Mr. Crimson. It looked pretty awesome, so I bought it! It cost about $5. I also bought a wooden document box for about $5. I planned to cut the lid up and use it for a tray.

I have to admit, I was pretty intimidated by the drybrushing to make it look like stone. The examples I saw of other people's work just looked so awesome that I didn't think I had the skill. After studying the other stuff out there, particularly Raudulfr Shieldcrusher's work and Quack188's Statue Tutorial (which goes into great detail on drybrushing). I found that the drybrush technique is extraordinarily simple, just takes a little bit of trial (and not much error) to get the hang of it.


Materials
Castle tower pinewood birdhouse (from Michael's)
8.5" by 11" balsa wood document box (from Michael's)
Foam sheets (about 1/8" thick, Walmart or Michael's)
Rustoleum Stone Textured Spray Paint (Walmart)
Acrylic Paints from Walmart: white, black, green, yellow
White Glue
Floral Moss
Green Flock
Krylon Clear Acrylic Matte Finish spray (Walmart)

Construction

Spoiler Alert!

Mr. Crimson's picture of the birdhouse. It looks like he has already taken it apart and that it sustained some damage during the dismantling process. I used a utility knife to take the birdhouse apart, carefully slicing through the glue holding the floors together.




Using a Dremel, I enlarged the door in the lower floor. I made the three ramps using the side of the document box. The lower ramp can be seen here. I used balsa (model rocket fins, actually) to make sides to the ramp which direct the dice to the doorway. Finally, I painted it with a texture spray paint that I bought at Walmart for about $7. The paint was Rustoleum brand Stone Textured Finish. I was happy with the result of the spray. I used two light coats. I didn't want the clumps of paint to get too large because I thought the texture would look out of scale:




The lower floor, seen from above. The middle ramp can be seen. I used foam from Walmart to line the ramps and much of the inside of the tower to quiet the dice. White glue works great for attaching the foam.




The foam:




Using the Dremel, I created an opening in the upper floor. The upper ramp can be seen (masked with blue tape for textured painting).




I also added toothpick prison bars in the window to prevent the dice from leaping out:




The tower:




Remains of the document box after I removed the side to make ramps:




The tray, which is made from the lid of the document box. I sliced the lid in half and glued the side on, then glued the extra half of the thin balsa wood top into the floor of the tray to make it stiffer:




Using a scrapbooking indenter tool I "carved" stonework into the sides of the tray:




Foam sheets were "carved" using a sharp pencil to create stonework for the upper ramp and tiled floor for the lower ramp. I painted these two pieces with a mixture of white glue and black paint to "seal" the foam and toughen it a little:

Painting

Spoiler Alert!

For the first coat, the castle is painted very dark grey, black with a wee bit of white paint. The sides of the tray are painted with a mixture of the dark grey and white glue while the floor of the tray is painted with a mixture of green and yellow paints and white glue. The purpose of the glue is to get it to soak into the balsa wood and make it a bit harder.









Second coat is a dark grey that is heavily drybrushed over the surface:









Third coat is a lighter grey that is medium-ly drybrushed over:





Fourth and fifth coats a very light grey that is lightly drybrushed over followed by pure white that is VERY lightly drybrushed on corners and edges of blocks:







Upper ramp stonework and tiled floor after drybrushing. It's difficult to tell in the picture, but the tiled floor is done with a tan hue.







Interior surfaces after drybrushing:





Sixth coat is very lightly drybrushed with the green/yellow mixture to get a mossy effect:





The bars are drybrushed with two different shades of red/brown/orange mixture to give a rusty effect. The second picture is with the flash off. The colors in the second picture are a little more accurate:

Final Finishing and Assembly

Spoiler Alert!

Stonework foam sheet installed on upper ramp and tiled floor floor foam sheet installed on lower ramp:






Using a piece of foam sheet, I cut out a sort of flagstone for the entrance. I used the scissors to cut nicks and grooves in the foam, then painted it with the black/glue mixture followed by a few coats of drybrushing.







Using Floral Moss ($2 at Walmart) and Coarse Turf flock ($4.50 at a hobby shop) I added a vine climbing the side of the castle. I've never used flock before, and the Coarse Turf wasn't like I expected. I think I'll have to get some fine turf.











The next step was to glue down the tower into the tray and the flagstone onto the doorstep.
After that I used the indenter tool from above to indent a sort of flagstone pathway into the tray.







Next I used varying shades of grey up to white to drybrush the stone pathway.









My idea was that the green would look like moss or grass growing between the stones, but it didn't. It looked like grey paint over the top of green paint. So I washed over the pathway with watered down dark grey (almost black) paint. Then I waited a half hour for the wash to dry, and then drybrushed over it again with some of the grey tones.

Next I mixed white glue with water, about 50/50. I painted over the green areas next to the pathway with the glue mixture, then poured the flocking onto it.








To pour the flock, I put it all into a big ziploc bag. I put down an empty cereal box that I split open, then poured the flock onto the tray. After letting it dry a bit, I tapped the loose stuff off onto the cereal box. Then folded it partially in the middle and poured it back into the bag. In hindsight, I think I needed to use a bit thicker glue, because some of the flock does not want to stay put.





I painted the glue mixture into some of the crevices and pushed flock into them with my fingertips. You can also see in these pictures that I drybrushed over the green smudgy areas with a bit darker green because they didn't show up well enough.













The final step was to spray one or two coats of the Krylon Matte finish over the whole piece. Be careful with this stuff. I got it a little too thick on the flock and the rusty bars, and it gets frosty looking. It didn't seem like I was putting much on while I was spraying it. Just be extremely light with it.

I originally thought I would put moss in the crevices between the castle and the tray, but I haven't done it. My three year old also decided that the moss on the back of the castle needed to go down the ramps...so that's gone too. But it is really fun to throw my dice down the tower! It took a long time, but I'm really happy with the outcome.

I hope this tutorial has been helpful for you!

[Quack188]

This looks awesome. I'm really impressed how well the paint turned out and the rust looks good too. I'm a little iffy about the moss at the moment, but I'm sure it'll look great once it's done. Keep taking lots of pictures for this, it definately helps people a lot. +rep.

[ozzy-scaper]

That's looking fantastic so far. Is HS your main game? If so, any thoughts about attaching the tower to a hex friendly base to allow the tower to be used in games as a structure? Looking forward to seeing finally assembled.

G.

[mrcrimson]

Man that looks great. Way to go Porkins! +Rep!

[Xn F M]

Now, I've never been really big on dice towers, but I may have to make myself something like this. Very nice Porkins.

What type of Dremmel bit did you use to cut the door open? I have a Dremmel tool, but I haven't used it in years; or on anything but white metal (so I only really have any experience with the little grind plates).

[Porkins]

Originally Posted by ozzy-scaper

Is HS your main game? If so, any thoughts about attaching the tower to a hex friendly base to allow the tower to be used in games as a structure?

I'm not really into the idea of having the tower be part of the map. I've seen other people do it. I guess if the tower were usable for figures, that would be cool. But this tower is too small for figures to be able to get onto it. Your Grayskull would be cool with a dice rolling thingy built in!

Originally Posted by Xn F M

What type of Dremmel bit did you use to cut the door open? I have a Dremmel tool, but I haven't used it in years; or on anything but white metal (so I only really have any experience with the little grind plates).

The Dremel bit I'm using is one that came with the set. It's about 1/8 inch diameter and it's sort of like an end mill ie - it cuts on the tip as well as the outer diameter of the bit. It's great for cutting wood and metal. I've used it on 1/4" thick aluminum plate as well as pinewood derby cars and other things. I've hardly used the other bits. I love my Dremel! I don't use it often, but when I do, it's a great tool to have.

[Raudulfr Shieldcrusher]

This is looking sweet!

[ozzy-scaper]

Porkins - you're so right about a dice tower thingy for Castle Grayskull! Man, another thing to do....!

G.

[Yodaking]

Looks good! I look at that birdhouse (as well as several others) every time I go into Micheal's but never came up with an idea for it. A dice tower makes perfect sense. Thanks for the tutorial, I know I will go over it in detail when I finally get around to making a dice tower of my own.

[Porkins]

Updated first post.

[Quack188]

I would give you some rep but alas, I cannot. You definately deserve it though. The dice tower looks amazing.

[SuperflyTNT]

Man, Rob, that's AWESOME. Great work.