Green Marble Dice Tower

Dice Towers help keep your rolls under control on a crowded gaming table, and they are fun to make. 

About Dice Towers
You simply throw your dice into the hole in the top, and they come out in the hole in the front. Inside the tower, small obstructions are glued onto the sides that slow down and "shake" the dice. There is a tray in the front to catch the dice so they don't roll off the table. 

What's different about this one?
I started out wanting to use water effects in the tray. And I had an idea that I'd like to try printing out a pattern that could be used under the murky water, as if part of a ruined dungeon floor that had been flooded with water. 

As far as what the rest of the tower would look like, I wasn't sure. It ended up having a slightly "Dwarven" feel to it -- at least that was what it turned into by the end of the project. Parts of it were inspired by the Lonely Mountain as portrayed in the Hobbit movie -- the green marble, the runes, and the stone carved into geometric shapes. 

So why would a Dwarf-style structure have murky water in front? I'm not sure, because basically, I made this up as I went along as you will see in the step by step images below. As with anything made up as you go along, there are things I would do differently if I had to do over again, but overall I think it looks cool and I probably learned a few things. 

Making the mosaic pattern for the floor of tray

I printed out a pattern onto 4"x 6" photo papers. I created the pattern in Photoshop Elements, using images borrowed from Dundjini. Then I mounted the prints onto foam core and cut out. 

I used PVA glue to attach gravel, sand and so forth to the mosaic floor, to represent "ruins" debris. Once dry I sprayed it with the sealer shown in pic. Then I made frames with foam core and sealed the seams with masking tape. Then I added the Secret Weapon Realistic Water, and tried various ways of coloring it using inks and paints.

I started this dice tower by making the "chute" that the dice go down out of black foam board. Dimensions are noted in the picture. There would be a front to this made out of PVC board.

These stairs shown below are made out of polystyrene foam. The green foam isn't quite as good as the blue foam, but works fine here because I was just going to cover them with texture anyway.

The stairs go at the bottom of the black tower, and act as a ramp to point the dice out of the opening and onto the tray.

I have a hot-wire foam cutter that I used to cut these green and blue foam pieces with. 

Here is my hacked attempt at clamping the larger blue foam chunks onto the foam board. I used the glue shown in the picture . . . "Foamtastic!" (How long did it take them to come up with that name?) It is a really thick PVA glue and it does work a lot better on foam, but still needed to be held together for awhile.

I wanted to make the Palight PVC board look like carved rock, so I distressed it by pressing rocks into it. Varying the rocks as well as the angle, etc., will add realism. 

Some of the rocks used in the image above are shown in the image below. 

Carving Runes

Using the rocks to distress the PVC gave me another thought -- there must be a way to "carve" runes into the PVC. 

First I tried writing the runes onto the board freehand, which was OK but was more crooked than I would like. So I typed some words into MS Word with a free runes font (I forget which one), and printed it out. As shown below, I traced those runes onto the PVC board using transfer paper. 

Now, I wanted to impress the runes into the board rather than just indicate the runes using paint. My idea was that I would make them visible using dry brush and shade paints. I tried using a Dremel rotary tool, which sort of failed, the marks were not smooth enough. Next, I tried using a woodworking gouge, but abandoned that as well. Finally I tried simply using a ballpoint pen, which worked OK and that is what I finally ended up with. The pen is easy, quick and gives you enough control to be able clearly show each rune.

On the other hand, these runes were really small and it was difficult to make the impressions as deep as I wanted. And when I was doing this part, I had not decided yet that the runes panel would be the green marble. Because of the texturing of the marble, I didn't dry brush over the runes, so they are hard to make out. I did use shade on them, but it wasn't effective enough. If I were to do it over again, I would just make larger runes and perhaps go back to the chisel / gouge tools to make them deeper?

Painting Faux Marble Pattern

This painting technique is a little messy, because it involves wet blending and sponging. Because of this, I didn't stop to take pictures along the way. There are plenty of YouTube videos showing this technique and it isn't that difficult. Basically I mixed Vallejo Model Color Emerald with black and sponged that in various stages. Eventually you switch to Emerald mixed with a lighter color, and in this case I used Vallejo Game Color Off White. Then after the sponging, you switch to a liner brush and paint in those veins using the same lighter colors. 

Gold Trim Around Dice-Throwing Hole

The image below shows a gold rectangular piece around the hole that goes on top of the tower. That was made out of Styrene and super-glued down. I used Vallejo Leather Brown, GC Plague Brown and GC Glorious Gold to paint it. 

There were a couple of reasons for adding this. First, I was thinking of the "Dwarf Style" used in the Hobbit movie, which combined gold and green marble. Gold and green seem to be good complements. Also, because I had a brown / gold color in the tray, I thought it would be good to pick that color up somewhere else for balance. 

Imitating the Crystals in Granite Using Spray Glitter

To paint the rocky parts I used Vallejo MC Dark Sea Green as a base and then dry brushed with Vallejo MC Blue Grey Pale. 

At that point, I masked off the green parts and the water and then sprayed the model with spray glitter from the local craft store, shown in the image above. I have used this technique in the past to suggest the little mica crystals (or whatever they are) that are often seen in granite. However the spray is a little "much," so then you have to knock that back a little by sponging over the glitter once it dries, in a random fashion, to allow some glitter to show through. I know it sounds a little cheesy but I think it actually looks realistic if done right. For that sponging, I used mixtures of Blue Grey Pale with Off White and MC Pale Blue. I think I did a wash over all of it too at one point to add some shadows. 

As one of the last things for this project, I wanted to make that water in the tray deeper. I used EZ Water by Woodland Scenics this time. It is less expensive and a lot quicker than the Realistic Water used earlier. To color the EZ Water, I used a tiny amount of a tan-colored crayon, only about the size of one of the pellets from the bag mixed into about a quarter of the bag. I had used this product once before a couple of years ago. 

EZ Water works OK but there are some drawbacks. 

• Unlike the Realistic Water, you need to melt the pellets in a pan, and then pour the product into the model while hot. In this case, it started to react with (started to melt?) the low sides of the tray, which are made out of blue polystyrene foam. (The taller sides are made from the PVC board). But then it settled down and there is no visible damage to the foam sides. 
• But I think the heat began to also warp the foam board with the mosaic pattern on it. Not bad but could have been worse. 
• Also the surface had foam bubbles and a sort of wave as shown in the pic below. Not what I had in mind. The instructions say you can try to smooth those out using a heat gun. I have one but did not try that for obvious reasons. 
• Finally I realized later that some of the EZ Water actually did leak out of the tray area, as shown in the pics with arrows below. That was irritating and I considered trying to remove it, but then decided I would consider those leaks a "feature" in the design rather than a mistake! Happy Accident, as Bob Ross would say?
• Next time I do this, I need to avoid using the blue foam and foam board in the watery area, and make sure the seams are sealed -- at least if I use the EZ Water again. 

Finally, I went back to the Realistic Water to try to flatten out the surface of the water, and to add some gloss to the stairs area. As I noted in the picture below: next time I use that product, I want to find a level surface in my house ahead of time -- the table I work on is slightly unlevel so I had to improvise by propping the model up with foil and other stuff. Otherwise the water can end up tilted toward one side.

Once the SW Realistic Water was dry after 24 hours, I sprayed the whole model with Testor's Dullcote for protection. Unfortunately, I forgot to mask off the watery area, so the Dullcote took away the glossiness of the water. So I applied a coat of Liquitex Gloss Varnish, which brought that back.