My friends wife’s birthday is fastly approaching and he obtained the full five seasons of Babylon 5 of which she is a huge fan. He asked me to create a box for the 5 sets and of course I jumped at the opportunity. The only other tabbed box I have made on the was a small thing for Force Friday so i was diving in nervous but excited. I sketched out the idea and started designing in cardboard. I actually started with living hinge corner idea with another box inside that held the DVDs. Well after trying a few times and it coming down to the wire I scrapped the idea as I didn’t want to waste/mess up on the only walnut ply I had on hand. So I decided to go with a dual layer regular tabbed box which I generated here.
I wanted it to look somewhat like it belonged on a space station, something you would find in a captain’s quarters. I went for the relic from the past look but like a gift that was given by an alien in the captain’s travels through space. Overall I think it turned out well but there were some things I would’ve like to have had a chance to erase and redo-
Spray Painting over the masking after engrave: Wish I would’ve used brush on paint and no primer using very thin coats. When I peeled the masking off it left a lip of paint along the borders on each engrave. I tried to carefully trim it off but the white primer started showing through.
Painting Engraves: Probably would’ve looked better with straight up engraves instead of paint on the symbols around the sides. Would’ve added more contrast.
Magnet Closure Engraved holes: Should’ve sunk them deeper in the material as the cover ones rub against the bottom box. I used green felt sliders to cover them but don’t know how long they will last without rubbing through or coming off.
Overall I am pretty satisfied with this as this is my first consignment using my and looking forward to doing more of these projects for peeps. I took a lot of footage and I am hoping it is good enough to use for my first Jonny Makes Youtube video.
Thank you! I wanted it to kinda look like a metal medallion. It gave me a ton of ideas for faux metal components if I can just perfect the 3d engrave file making thingy.
Too bad I threw out the boxes for all of my DVDs years ago. As a Babylon 5 fan, this makes me want the original DVD boxes just so I have an excuse for the larger box.
You could cut through the outer box completely, and let the light brown of the inner box show through, like where you have the handles. That’d save you some painting.
Wow! That turned out great! I’m just getting started on my GF, where would I find info about 3D engraving? Is that different from using a grayscale image to engrave?
Only slightly different at this point, from the machine perspective. You will use the “Vary Power” grayscale option, and need to use/build imagery that will work.
Take a glance at these two tutorials; based on what I’ve seen of your art, I think you will figure the idea out pretty quick.
You could also do a forum search for “3d depth map” to find more discussions.
I think of the ‘steps’ as ‘layers’ but they aren’t… they are Steps. Argh, terminology! So when you say “layers”…
Multiple steps in the GFUI would be different engrave passes, and could have different engrave parameters applied.
Layers in the design software are ignored, but vectors are separated by color, so multiple layers of a distinct color in AI are merged into a single step in the GFUI, and would be one engrave pass. Different colors in a vector program will be different steps in the GFUI.
Does that answer your question, or did I just confuse you?
Great box! I’m going to go as far as to say it’s worthy of its content.
B5 is one of the best shows in the history of television. It did things no other show did for years and years to come. I met Bruce Boxleitner and actually had a chance to talk with him for a little while. He said that even at the time, even with how the show was handled, they knew it was something unique. That’s an understatement. I’ve watched the entire series multiple times over the years. I admit it… last ep makes me cry every time.
Thank you! Those guys lead you in the right direction. I used a grayscale bitmap for the box medallion. Settings were “Vary Power” in the menu and put my min power at 1. Then the settings were 600/Full
was a small thing for Force Friday so i was diving in nervous but excited. I sketched out the idea and started designing in cardboard. I actually started with living hinge corner idea with another box inside that held the DVDs. Well after trying a few times and it coming down to the wire I scrapped the idea as I didn’t want to waste/mess up on the only walnut ply I had on hand. So I decided to go with a dual layer regular tabbed box which I generated here.
lead you in the right direction. I used a grayscale bitmap for the box medallion. Settings were “Vary Power” in the menu and put my min power at 1. Then the settings were 600/Full