Hi everyone. I've been thinking forever about making my own chess set and I wanted to post this here in case anyone can offer me any advice.
As it stands right now, I'm at the very beginning of the project. I'm considering the designs at this point and have not chosen types of stone. Here are my requirements:
- I'd like to have two opposing materials, one dark and one light. I've seen so many pretty stones that I don't know how to choose. The dark ones, I'm leaning towards some type of obsidian because I like the translucence. The light side, I'm looking for something that may not be vibrant, but is colorful and translucent. Like a rainbow caught in crystal. Like the rainbow bridge from the Thor movies.
- I'd like the designs to be completely different from one side to the other. Not like in a normal chess set where the pieces are mirror images except for the color. Maybe the dark side is sharper or more natural, while the light side is more sculpted or has fewer sharp edges.
- I'd like the pawns to be at least an inch and a half tall, and the king to be four inches tall, with the other sizes falling between. I realize this might limit my choice of material, but there are so many options that I can't imagine that's too restricting.
- I'm also going to have to do the actual board, and would like something iridescent on the even squares (maybe mother of pearl, for example) and something not iridescent for the others, but dark (not sure what material).
- I realize this is going to be a heavy board, not the kind of thing you'll take with you to the park. But I'd like to also create hinged boxes - probably using wood - to store the pieces on each side, so the player could hypothetically take their pieces with them and leave the board at home.
So, it's a big project and will probably take a number of years to complete, but I gotta start somewhere and this seems like the best place. Any opinions or advice or warnings will be helpful. Thanks in advance!