You may be thinking "this is already quite a bit of work" (haha keep reading), or maybe that you wanted to try it for yourself.
Go ahead! Its amazing!
I love art and that's why I do this!
If you want advice or have some to offer me, message me! I'm always looking to get better and help other people achieve their potential.
Its a lot of fun to create something that has both functional use and aesthetic value. Its also nice that its a hobby that pays for itself. Maybe eventually I'll pay off the laser cutter.
Anyway, lets keep going.
10a. I only had to do this once, but I had to create an SVG file for the box shape. It requires sawtooth edges so I can glue the very flat wood and plexiglass together. That's what the orange lines are below. I did this via online file generator. just google 'Laser cutter box maker' and you'll get a bunch of results. I tweaked the final result in Inkscape, a free vector graphics program.
10b. I upload the art to laser cutter website interface. I turn the images on their side so that the laser grooves match the grain of the wood.
11. I put painters tape on the wood so that the laser cutter will cut away the areas to be painted, like a stencil, but it also cuts it deep into the wood. I line the wood with the interface and hit the button!
A full picture on a box side takes between 15-20 minutes to engrave. The smaller pieces on the inside take about 6 minutes. An empty box side takes about 90 seconds to cut out. All told, a normal box takes 2 hours of lasering. Fortunately, I can just hit the button and come back a half hour later to do the next few pieces.
When a piece is finished, I have to be careful that there weren't dense pockets in the plywood, which can the laser to not cut through all of the way. If there are, I have to recut the edge, adding another 90 seconds. If I accidently move it even the smallest amount and there were pockets, The piece will still be connected to the larger piece of wood I am cutting from. Its near impossible to realign it perfectly. I have to restart the entire piece. This happens once every 20 pieces.
To speed things along, I cut out all of the pieces in sequence so I can paint and stain everything at once. For this Avacyn box, I felt particularly inspired, so I added an Innistrad styled landscape to the interior pieces. They don't look like much now, but stick around.
12. Next I paint. I dab the brush a ton to get paint into all of the tiniest of cracks. I also tried a wide variety of paints, and it turned out one of the cheapest brands works the best. It sticks well (especially after we stain it) and it has no glossiness. This is important because the cut away portions I am painting are quite bumpy. Any glossiness will cause light to bounce weird off of those bumps and you get a weird static like glare.
13. After an hour I can remove the tape. I peel away the large pieces by hand, the smaller ones I scrape off with a flat piece of wood. The tape however did not totally protect the image. There is some bleeding around the edge and into the wood grain itself. I take a sander to the pieces to clean it up, as well as round out corners that will be sliding against each other. Then I have to clean all of the dust out of the engraving with a micro fiber towel.
15. Now onto the gluing! I also have to apply glue to the panels in a certain order. The glue dries faster than the time it takes to apply it to every edge. I also have to apply less to the edges around the plexiglass front piece. Its very hard to remove the glue on the inside if it squeezes out.
14. Ok, almost done. Now we just got to stain it. I want a little bit of stain in the black areas to help seal it, but not have too much or I will lose some of the nice contrast. Using this brand, I get a nice translucent coat and its dry enough to pick up within an hour. It'll take another couple of days to lose its scent. If you order a box from me, you'll probably still be able to smell it when you open the box.
I first do the bottom part. Once the glue dries, I sand the corners to give them a smooth sliding edge for the top piece. I have to go back and restain those bits with a q-tip later. Also, sometimes micro irregularities exist that make it wider. When I do the top piece, I slide it on and then squeeze it for a minute. This way they fit tightly together but with enough give that they can slide against each other when it is removed.
16. Almost done! I now glue in the thumb tabs and I scrape off any rogue glue with my fingernail and a wet cloth, careful to avoid scratching the plexiglass. Lets take a look at the final product!
Haha, jokes on you!
Liesa was the commander this whole time!
Take that, Avacyn!
Featured: Bruna
And a Nephalia harbor?
Gisela
Also, the Helvault
Sigarda
And a mob on a hilltop.
Final Thoughts
This was actually a box I made for myself. The sample conversation was an amalgamation of conversations I had with people while discussing their commissions. In all actuality, most conversations are much longer where we discuss multiple design options and layouts. I will be making this particular design available soon under a new listing that will be called
"MtG Legendary Lore Deck Boxes" or something like that.
I had a ton of fun making this. I love doing fully immersive boxes revolving around a theme. I can play around with different ideas and combinations of images to tell a story or depict a theme. The original painting of Avacyn the Purifier is one of my favorite works in all of MtG.
The hardest part about doing the art for these specifically were the angels wings. They are quite wide but the boxes are taller than they are wide. I had to find a good balance between cropping the wings so the actual figure isn't too small and at the same time making there be large open space above or below the angel. But if I crop too much of the wing you can barely tell its an angel. Those wings add a lot to the majesty.
I hope you enjoyed learning about my process.
Maybe you can try it for yourself if you have the tools.
Otherwise, maybe it will give you ideas about what you might want to commission.
Or maybe you wondered why it cost so much to burn an image or two onto a box. Maybe now you are now wondering why I don't charge more. (I spend 9-12 hours on Fully Custom Commissions) Answer is, mainly because this is a hobby to me and I care more about making something special for people rather than making money.
If you've made it this far, let's make something awesome!