Because crafting is fun. Especially Game-related crafting. And 3E monster manual looked cooler.
Now that I've been moving towards using maps and tiles as terrain instead of 3D terrain, as most of my games take place somewhere else than at my home, I've had an itch to craft something. Seeing some very cool Dice pouches and pondering what would be optimal way to categorize and store my minis gave me an idea of making a Monster Manual -style miniatures box for my core miniatures collection.
Finally, I got it ready - or as ready as I wanted it to be at this point, I might continue with details and interiors at some point, right now the interiors are just practical. So, here it is:
The base box is made from 2mm cardboard, cover attached with a stripe used for binding book backs. Golden/silver parts are also cardboard, patterns drawn with a ball-point pen pressing hard, and pegs pieces of wooden spheres glued in a hole made with a hole-puncher. Cover material is plastic snake-skin bought from a Hobby store.
The eye is a Glass Cabuchon with paint on it's back. First black in the middle, then golden dots, then red dots and finally very light grey.
The eye from behind
What's inside?
In case you wonder what I keep in my base miniature collection, here's a short breakout:
- The largest box inside has a big collection of miniatures for PC's and NPC's. There's a lot of human warriors/fighters.
- Tuned-down selection of Undead.
- Peasants, nobles, thugs and thieves
- Animals, minor elementals & fiends, Golems
- Villains and important NPC's
- Soldiers and guards
There's also little extra doom where I keep a Giant (Frost giant, the only huge one that fits in and it looks great! I like my giants Huge), a Large dragon and another that's flying; The flying dragons are very big, and work also almost for Huge! Also, a larger demon and a few angels. These are easy to change if I have something else on my mind, and I'll usually carry one or more other boxes, larger or smaller; I'll post more of my minis organization later.
That's it. In future I might want to place some metal pieces to corners inside to make the box strudier and add a mechanism to close the box. Perhaps I might also varnish the golden/silver parts. But for now I'm happy with this and it will surely be an eye candy on the game table!