Coins for Board Games
I was given another opportunity to play Concordia, which I played the other day, so I decided to make something for it.
I'm going to make coins.
I'm incorporating AI into the process this time, so if you're not a fan, please turn back now, or feel free to vent your hatred for AI.
Here are the steps:
1. Motif selection
2. Rough design
3. AI design generation
4. AI height map generation
5. Relief creation in ZBrush
6. Shape refinement in Maya
7. 3D printing
8. Painting
This is how I did it.
My request to the AI was something like this.
Please generate a relief-style coin image based on the second design, with the quality of the chick in the first image. Place the Arabic numeral 2 directly below the chick relief, and use a bird footprint motif for the outer frame decoration.
It's amazing, but it's somehow not very interesting.
I'm satisfied with the result, but I wonder, is it because I feel like the fun part was taken away from me?
Is it because I don't like that a highly polished chick appeared from a different angle than the photo or the rough sketch?
But if a designer I liked were in charge of this design, I would be happy.
Yet, with AI, I have negative feelings.
Maybe it's because I don't have good feelings toward AI, so I hate everything associated with it.
It's like the saying 'love the house and its crow,' I get it now.
I convinced myself by limiting it strictly to personal use... I convinced myself, so I decided to make it.
Converted to a height map based on the design.
This doesn't bother me much, why is that?
Is it because there are other height map conversion tools???
Well, it might be an excellent height map conversion tool.
Extruded that height map as a mask.
Refined the edges, volume, and data, then exported it.
I'll create four types of coins: 1, 2, 5, and 10 in this way.
I made 1 an egg, 5 a young bird, and 10 an old chicken.
All that's left is to paint it, let it dry, and it's done.
I'll also add a leather pouch; the one used in the Concordia package, that one is good.
A leather pouch seems easy; just punch holes around the edge of a circular piece of fabric and thread a string through them.
I made it so that pulling one side tightens it, but when I think of a regular cloth bag, I imagine pulling on both sides.
Since it's an old-style bag, maybe one side is fine, though.
I managed to fix it to a two-sided drawstring mechanism while looking at a real bag.
Bags really have an amazing structure...
The coins are layered, and while there are some printing errors, I feel a bit less attached to them because I used AI.
So, I just painted them as they were.
There are even side effects like this...
The motif is nice, so I'd like to use them the next time I play.
