About boxes and "skull-candies"

This time it’s tutorial time again ;). I finally figured out how to make my boxes for Gokudera’s Sistema CAI with the help of some friends.

I decided on balsa wood after quite some other ideas cause it is rather easy to work with, inexpensive, has a very light weight (and not to mention I still had a whole board lying around here…)

But most likely it’s not the most easy or timesaving way and I most likely won't get totally rid of the wood pattern. The boxes look rather neat and robust to my mind though.

How to make Gokudera’s boxes /Vongola Boxes

What you need:

Balsa wood, acrylic (black, dark red, silver), rasp, sandpaper, box cutter, 2 cent coin (Euro), pencil, hand saw, glue of your choice, varnish and  later for the decorations fimo light.

First of all I made a simple model out of paper to estimate the size of my boxes. I’m not sure yet if I made a mistake but mine are about 4x4x4cm in size.

Therefore I cut small quadrates out of the balsa wood using the handsaw. For the bottom I cut plates of 3,6x3,6cm, for the sides 3,9x3,9cm plates and for the lid 4,2x4,2cm plates. Afterwards I rasped the edgings and sandpapered the whole plate in order to get rid a little of the inevitable wood pattern.

Afterwards I glued the sides to the bottom (see the pictures), let the glue dry, sometimes sandpapered/rasped the edges when needed and painted the inside black with acrylic. When the colour was dry I tried if the lid fitted and draw a line which bisected the lid. (Mind the wood pattern of your board plz! If you don’t place the section parallel to it, the plate might break when you cut the hole later on. If it happens , don’t worry though,  cause the pieces can easily be glued together again. Still it’s more convenient if you don’t have to mend your box already.) Afterwards I used the 2 cent (Euro) coin to draw a circle in the middle of it (maybe my holes are a little large in fact, you have to see what suits yourself best). I cut the lid into halves using the handsaw again, rasped the edges and used the box cutter to cut out the half circles I draw around the 2-cent-coin.

Afterwards I rasped and sandpapered the edgings again.

Now I painted the whole lid red on both sides (just to be sure), let it dry and finally glued it to the rest of the box.  (You can make closed or slightly opened boxes depending on how you glue the lid onto your box. Unfortunately you can’t open or close them later though. I don’t know how to achieve this while still achieving such a light weight of the boxes.) Afterwards I painted the whole box red twice to get rid of the wood pattern as best as I could and to even irregularities inevitably created while glueing the pieces together earlier.

Geez, why had it to be 16 of them ^^'''...

Now just the silver decorations are missing (and I still have to paint most boxes cause I ran out of that red colour -.-''). I’m planning to make the little skulls and bones out of fimo light, paint them silver and glue them to the boxes on 3 sides. The silver linings of the edges will just be painted.  (I’ll add a picture later, when I have finished these as well). Afterwards I’m going to add a layer of varnish on the whole box.

Update:

48 (3x16 since one side will be glued to the belts) tiny skull candies as they got nicknamed due to a friend's comment.

The skulls alien-heads whatever... took more time as I thought again... And unfortunately I couldn't make them look all the same. Simply wasn't born to work with fimo -.- but tried my best.

Painted skulls. Now just 192 very tiny bonefragments are missing plus the belt buckle and the rivets for one of his leather bracelets are missing.

The tutorial can easily be applied to Vongola boxes or other KH Reborn! boxes as well if you change size and colour if needed and decorations. Although for boxes that don’t have to be worn as a part of your cosplay you can also use a compact base. In this case I just had to make real boxes in order to keep the weight as low as possible.

Besides I once already made/improvised a single box for TYL Gokudera out of  papier mâché which is actually a little easier to my mind. But in that case I needed a rocky rough surface on the one hand and on the other it was just an accessory I could pull out when needed. (I used green wool for the mossy stuff on it besides.) It had neither to be as robust nor rainproof.

So, that’s all so far about my boxes. Added the applications and last two zippers to the jacket meanwhile too.