CrazyEddie
Full House
I'm starting this thread to track my progress on my custom relabel project for what will probably be my primary set for quite some time to come. I hope y'all enjoy seeing it as well. Comments and questions are welcome!
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Back in October 2020 I bought around a thousand Spirit Mold china clays. Quantity-wise, this is the second-largest set I've purchased (I bought around two-thousand sixteen-stripe chips at the same time... but that's another story for another thread). Cost-wise, though... Spirit Molds were nearly all out-of-stock at retailers everywhere, and the last retailer had put his last chips on clearance for seven cents per chip. I don't have the budget for a big set of leaded shaped inlay clays, but I can make a big set out of seven-cent chips.
If you don't know what Spirit Mold chips are: they're one of the earlier generations of china clays. They have a chalky feel, much more clay-like than current CCs like Milanos or Majestics. I really like the way they feel, and I think the mold mark (the corporate logo of the manufacturer, Eastony Industries) looks cool. They have a reputation for being quite fragile, prone to flaking, chipping, and breaking, although some chips and colors seem to hold up better than others. Several PCF members have made awesome-looking sets by labeling over blanks, or replacing the labels on the two stock designs they were imported with (Casino da Vinci and Pyramid Casino). A few examples:
The problem is, I came late to the Spirit Mold party, and the selection of colors still available was pretty limited. I had to make do with what I could find, doing my best to find a set of colors that I liked and that I could turn into denoms I would be happy with. And here's what I ended up with:
I bought what I could get before they were gone, knowing that I'd get around to designing custom labels for them eventually.
Well, eventually is finally here.
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As I sat down last week to work out what I wanted to do with these chips, I realized one of my biggest problems was the discord between the blue chips and the white chips. I chose them because out of all the ones available those were my absolute favorites, bar none. I love the colors - big, bold, straight-forward but engaging. I planned to use the blues as $1 and the whites as $5 and bought them in quantities accordingly. But last week, I noticed that they don't get along with each other.
Here they are wearing their stock Pyramid Casino decals. I thought I liked that look (I'm a big fan of black), but now all I can see in that picture is a fragmented, chaotic jumble of clashing colors. Disjointed. A mess. The black ring breaks each chip up into smaller bits and pieces of colors, rather than unifying the splashed pot.
So I spent a lot of time thinking about how to make these two chips work together. They're my favorites, and I want to use them as my workhorse denominations. But how to reconcile them? They're as different as night and day. But finally, inspiration struck - wait, that's it... the blue chips are night and the white chips are day! Make them complements, not contrasts!
Once I had that inspiration, the entire design fell into place before my very eyes, from colors to concept to style to theme. I sat down at my computer and did my best to bring my new vision to life.
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And so now I present to you, a work in progress: The Solar Spirit.
And after cutting-and-pasting (literally! I cut them out with scissors and glued them on with gluestick!) I have the following crude mockups:
The intention is for them to have an art-deco-poster-illustration style, similar to these:
This is all just in the mockup stage, absolutely nothing is final. My plan is to get the basic design ideas in place, and eventually get a pro designer to work it over and get high-quality labels made for the final product. But I have to say, I'm actually really pleased with my slapped-together artwork even as it stands! I already know some things I want to change for the next draft, but just looking at what I've done so far makes me really happy.
And I feel like I've solved the initial problem. I think the 1 and the 5 work together really well now:
Like two sides of the same coin. Night and Day.
---
Back in October 2020 I bought around a thousand Spirit Mold china clays. Quantity-wise, this is the second-largest set I've purchased (I bought around two-thousand sixteen-stripe chips at the same time... but that's another story for another thread). Cost-wise, though... Spirit Molds were nearly all out-of-stock at retailers everywhere, and the last retailer had put his last chips on clearance for seven cents per chip. I don't have the budget for a big set of leaded shaped inlay clays, but I can make a big set out of seven-cent chips.
If you don't know what Spirit Mold chips are: they're one of the earlier generations of china clays. They have a chalky feel, much more clay-like than current CCs like Milanos or Majestics. I really like the way they feel, and I think the mold mark (the corporate logo of the manufacturer, Eastony Industries) looks cool. They have a reputation for being quite fragile, prone to flaking, chipping, and breaking, although some chips and colors seem to hold up better than others. Several PCF members have made awesome-looking sets by labeling over blanks, or replacing the labels on the two stock designs they were imported with (Casino da Vinci and Pyramid Casino). A few examples:
- Diablo Club by @MG20
- Silver Shoe by @Kensco
- 818 Poker & Gameroom also by @Kensco
- Moxie Poker Tour by @Moxie Mike
- Weller Hardy Spirit Molds by @SeanGecko
The problem is, I came late to the Spirit Mold party, and the selection of colors still available was pretty limited. I had to make do with what I could find, doing my best to find a set of colors that I liked and that I could turn into denoms I would be happy with. And here's what I ended up with:
I bought what I could get before they were gone, knowing that I'd get around to designing custom labels for them eventually.
Well, eventually is finally here.
---
As I sat down last week to work out what I wanted to do with these chips, I realized one of my biggest problems was the discord between the blue chips and the white chips. I chose them because out of all the ones available those were my absolute favorites, bar none. I love the colors - big, bold, straight-forward but engaging. I planned to use the blues as $1 and the whites as $5 and bought them in quantities accordingly. But last week, I noticed that they don't get along with each other.
Here they are wearing their stock Pyramid Casino decals. I thought I liked that look (I'm a big fan of black), but now all I can see in that picture is a fragmented, chaotic jumble of clashing colors. Disjointed. A mess. The black ring breaks each chip up into smaller bits and pieces of colors, rather than unifying the splashed pot.
So I spent a lot of time thinking about how to make these two chips work together. They're my favorites, and I want to use them as my workhorse denominations. But how to reconcile them? They're as different as night and day. But finally, inspiration struck - wait, that's it... the blue chips are night and the white chips are day! Make them complements, not contrasts!
Once I had that inspiration, the entire design fell into place before my very eyes, from colors to concept to style to theme. I sat down at my computer and did my best to bring my new vision to life.
---
And so now I present to you, a work in progress: The Solar Spirit.
And after cutting-and-pasting (literally! I cut them out with scissors and glued them on with gluestick!) I have the following crude mockups:
The intention is for them to have an art-deco-poster-illustration style, similar to these:
This is all just in the mockup stage, absolutely nothing is final. My plan is to get the basic design ideas in place, and eventually get a pro designer to work it over and get high-quality labels made for the final product. But I have to say, I'm actually really pleased with my slapped-together artwork even as it stands! I already know some things I want to change for the next draft, but just looking at what I've done so far makes me really happy.
And I feel like I've solved the initial problem. I think the 1 and the 5 work together really well now:
Like two sides of the same coin. Night and Day.