ECHOES OF IMPERIUM

When I shared pictures of this I received questions if I could make a tutorial of how I did it so here it is!

Now firstly I have to say that this is just how I did this box, but there is no limit on how you can do one yourself. Use your imagination and see what happens. All I can say is that is good fun to have a go to make something special for your gang or warband. And why not make a bigger box for cards or the gang itself?

To begin with you need a box of sorts. And I found a couple of cheap ones online. But keep your eyes open, second hand shops and candy boxes might be a source. This one was actually for hard candies.

You then have to decide what you want to decorate it. For this I wanted a Blanche picture of a woman (the box is for a mate who plays Escher). Then I rummaged around my bit box to find suitable decorations. I didn´t want stuff that were too big as the Necromunda dice are quite big. So I had a good try just dry fitting stuff. In the end I settled for a baby face, six skulls (one for each of the houses) and thin strips of balsa wood. I made groves into the balsa wood using a metal brush and also painted the separately just by dipping the in Agrax earthshade wash.

I cut the arch out of stiff paper from the white dwarf magazine and then I cut clear plastic to put over the picture to protect it. For the last step I made an arch from thin plastic to frame the picture.

Then I dried fitted all the pieces again with the dice inside to see that I could close the box. This could potentially be an important mistake not to do, so bear it in mind.

The next step was the outside of the box and as I wanted it quite plain I just took a piece from a GW sector mechanicus building that looked cool. To make it fit better I cut it to make it stand out less and for the glue to bond better.

Then I just taped 5mm airbrush masking tape in a typical Necromunda hazard stripe pattern. After that it was time to spray everything bar the picture black.

Then I just glued all the pieces in and started painting. I painted the inside of the box with typhus corrosion for some grit and texture. I then painted the skulls and dolls head grey followed by bone white and pure white. The arch was painted with a light copper color. I followed this step up with some Agrax earthshade wash on the skulls and a purple and red wash on the dolls head. To make it more grimy I added some blood coming out of the eyes, bleeding down.

To finish the whole thing of I had printed some latin text on plain paper and I added watered down Agrax earthshade on some strips and tore them apart slightly and when they dried I glued them with wood glue for decoration. To add some colors I spatterd some blood color inside by flicking a tooth brush.

Then it was time for the outside and this is where I ran into some problems as the black spray paint peeled off when I took the tape away so I had to repaint the lines by hand. So I used dawnstone grey (the same as I used for the face and skulls on the inside) for the yellow lines and then used several layers of Averland sunset (love this color). After some repaints I was happy with the coverage and the straight lines. To make it more industrial I sponged black and a dark brown color on followed by a dark metal color. I wanted the metal very subdued and not shiny. To paint the sector mechanicus decoration used Mig rust and grime colors to create rust streaks. I also added so weathering powders.

To finish it off I found some old (20 years?) transfers that I used to decorate it. Then I just sprayed the whole thing on the outside with Ard coat followed by a matt spray for protection. And hey presto it was done!