These look amazing!
Would you mind sharing some info on your workflow? Everything looks perfect -- the Dominion logo, the expansion name, the RGG logo, the background texture... How did you do it?
Sure! I'm a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to hobbies (but not really in anything else!), and I've loved Photoshop since learning how to use it in High School.
For the Front:
- I started with a high quality scan of the Intrigue box I found online. Used photoshop to erase the art from it (this is what takes the longest, especially erasing around the "Donald X. Vaccarino" text! I know I could use the magic wand tool, but like I said, I'm a perfectionist and I'd rather do it myself). I used a transparent .png of the Rio Grande Logo so I wouldn't have erase all around the sun rays! Just scaled it to the right size and plopped in on top, then copied the other side of the box to cover the original RGG logo.
- Next I clone stamped out the intrigue text, and tried to match the font as best I could (it's still not perfect though, I have to create my own font if I want it to be exact, but I was able let this detail go... for now). Put a stoney texture and a drop shadow on the text to make it look similar to the official text.
- Then added in a shadow to both sides of the border (by making a black filled copy, moving it and blurring it).
- Last, but not least, added an overlay layer covering the grey border so I can make it whatever color I want.
For the Back:
- With so much editable content on the back, I actually started from scratch for it. I found a nice cloud texture online and used that as the background (you'll notice it's not the exact same texture as the official box, but it's pretty close). Then added the same kind of overlay layer to colour it.
- I used a low quality scan of the Prosperity box back (there are not many high quality scans of box backs online, if any) just to get the right placement of logos and text.
- Then I scaled down the logo, nameplate/text, and RGG logo from the box front, and placed them appropriately.
- Lined up the text layer (Times New Roman), added a partially transparent outer glow to match the official boxes.
- The UPC, play time/ages/# of players indicator, "C" and "E", and small pieces warning are all from a scan I did of my own Intrigue box.
- Added in some art under the background layer, and made "windows" by selecting rectangles, then modifying the selection with photoshop's "feathering" feature, then erasing the selection on the background and overlay layers. Every dominion box is quite different when it comes to these "art windows", depending on whether the expansion has mats and/or tokens. Even within one expansion box, the "windows" are not all the same dimensions, and have pretty inconsistent placement. The placement I used for my box was based on the Prosperity back.
- All that was left was writing some flavor text for the expansion, and as most of you know, I love flavor! It was hard trimming it down though, the first blurb I wrote was double the length! I had no room for describing the expansion's theme, so I had to cut it down.
For the Side:
- Pretty simple, just used the background, colour overlay, logo, and play time indicator from the back, scaled appropriately, and made one "art window".
So now I have a fully editable template, I can easily change the art all over the box, the expansion name (I just scale the nameplate to fit the name if it's a long one), the colour of the box and text, and the text itself. I can even delete any of the logos on the box if so desired. I added in the "Ritual Mats" to my box back, but I can delete those, and pretty much add in anything anyone may want, or just use the space for more art.
If you have any more questions, feel free to ask, and again, if anyone would like a custom box for their fan set (I can even convert it to a smaller expansion quite easily) just let me know!