Red and Black Senet Board

The picture doesn't really do this one justice.  We were playing around with color effects, and I quite like the way this one came out, though the dark staining is exaggerated.  This Senet board has a kind of burned-wood look.

Painting Senet boxes using Egg Tempera

We decided when we first started creating Senet board games that we'd use egg tempera for any painted surfaces. Egg tempera, also simply called tempera, is a painting medium used since the time of the pharoahs, if not even earlier. It's simply a mix of pigments with a binder, in this case egg yolk. Egg tempera was the primary method of painting until oil-based paints gained popularity in the 1500s.  In the images below, we're mixing pigment with the binder, and have applied a base coat.

Senet box under drawings

These are the penciled underdrawings for two Senet boxes, which will be painted using egg tempera.  The boxes themselves are some of our earlier designs, and have larger overall dimensions.

New Tafl Pieces

Had to wait three days for our new tafl piece mold to cure, but it was finally ready to go last night. We went ahead and cast a set for Tablut.  These are simple black and white, I'd like to go for more of a stone like effect later.

Game Board Squares

Spent some time today cutting squares out of oak plywood.  These are 1 1/4 inch squares that we'll use for our tafl games (mainly Tablut and Ard Ri for now).  We use the same size for our Seega games, but we typically use pine for those.  During assembly, we need to do a light sanding to make sure everything fits correctly, and then the pieces are glued onto a base.