Catalyst Castle: February 2012

Art Project: Custom Dragons of Kir Game Box

6 comments Posted by Catalyst at 12:42 AM

Last weekend I created another custom game box like the ones I made for Yomi and Frenzy. This time I made a box for a board game called Dragons of Kir, and I made the box for a different reason. With Yomi and Frenzy, both of those games consisted of several decks of cards, and I wanted a nice box to keep the different decks together in. With Dragons if Kir it was a matter of efficiency. You see, right now my game collection takes up the better part of three shelves in my closet. There are always new games appearing on the horizon that I am interested in buying, but I'm running out of space to put them. I am selling some of my games that just don't appeal to me any more, and that is freeing up some space. Dragons of Kir is one game I was considering selling, but it actually isn't a bad game, and kind of unique in its mechanics. After playing the game with my sisters, I was telling them about my lack of space and I made the observation that this game, with its over-sized box, takes up a lot more space than it needs to. Megan suggested that I could make a smaller box for it, and I decided that might be the thing to do. I thought I would share some pictures of the process.

This is the original box. The top here measures about 9x12 inches.

As you can see, this box is far more roomy than it needs to be to accommodate the games components.

So, these are the basic tools and materials I used in constructing my new box.

Here is the bottom, measured and cut out.

Now I've folded up the sides and am making sure the game board will fit properly. I ended up trimming the sides just a bit shorter after this.

Here is the rough box - top and bottom - assembled.

And here are all of the components inside of it, just to make sure it all fits.

Here is the interior of the finished box. The white is card stock, and the black is electrical tape.

And everything fits inside perfectly with only a little room for things to rattle around.

Here is the top of my box. I found the ink drawing of a dragon with a Google image search, and I happen to have a font that matched the original title font pretty well.

As you can see, this box has a much slimmer profile.

And here is my custom box compared to the original box. It isn't as pretty, but as you can see it is much more efficient. It was very easy to find a spot on my shelves for this new custom box, and makes the decision to keep this game a lot easier.

Where's Wall-E?

4 comments Posted by Catalyst at 2:28 PM

I can't take credit for this, but I found this cool picture online and just wanted to share it. All of the robots/cyborgs are from various movies and shows. How many can you identify? Can you find Wall-E?

Click on the image to view full size.

Art: Grey

1 comments Posted by Catalyst at 1:41 AM

Hey, this is another quick art post of a random sketch I finished digitally last week. This time I'm posting some screen caps that show the work in progress. I hope you enjoy!