What if your favorite Boardgame is expanding, and expanding, but the editor never had the idea to make a decent storage system ?? .. Well that's the case for Talisman (by FFG) .. It's simply the best game in the world, but it lacks a storage system for the many cards, boards, rules, figurines, etc ..

Many people use plastic containers or 3D-printed wooden card-stacker, Which are cool, but don't have 'the look and feel' of the rest of the game.
After many hours online, trying to find suitable, and good-looking deck-holders, It occured to me: 'there are none'.

So I decided to make them myself, with the assitance of the Harbor master at 'Talisman Island' (THE biggest fan-site for Talisman) for providing graphics/matching textures from the original game.

I made some Cardboxes for the individual card-stacks, and a case to keep everything together.

Step 1: Cardboxes

First pic where the test-boxes, cut from spaghetti-boxes, and covered with felt. It was more of a 'pinciple-check'.

Next pics are 3D renderings of the boxes, just to give an idea of what they are when textured.

Last pic is the real life result (colors of the photograph are a bit off, sorry for that)

Materials needed:

- something to cut (cissors, cutter, ..)

- something to glue (I used wood-glue)

- something to spread the glue evenly

- something to press (books or something, eventually a press-roll)

- something to print (color)

- a version of sketchup (can be a free one)

- bit of patience, perseverance, and motivation

General Idea:

- keep cards for one region together

- No hard parts (don't scratch my board!)

- All boxes should fit in the original game-box

- Be easily adaptable (to allow more cards)

- Build should be easy/cheap too (printer, scissors, glue, ..)

Each new Talisman extension brings an adaptation of the size (length) of the decks. So it's easier to adapt a file, print, cut and glue them once or twice .. than having to add/buy boxes on the side, for the same decks .. in my opinion anyway.

I designed them now in a Sketchup (v.15) format (on scale). Flattened them out by hand (like pepakura would do), and gave them a texture.

Step 2: Print the Cardboxes

I don't really know about a company who would do the efforts to print on cardboard directly for a 'one piece' print only. Some of you might have a good printer capable of printing on cardboard.. (preferably coloured cardboard, otherwise the inside of the boxes would be white .. yuk!)

If you only have a simple color-printer, we will need to print them on a lighter paper, glue them on a colored cardboard (80Lbs/300gms should do it), cut, fold and glue them.

Download latest version of Sketchup here: http://www.sketchup.com/.

Go to my Dropbox, and download the .skp files for the card-boxes: Dropbox

IT should be pretty simple to print them, as I saved the files in the 'correct view'.
This said, Sketchup is known for the 'weird way' they allow users to print.

So here's a little overview of what should be set in Sketchup:

When the file is opened, make sure you set ‘Parallel Projection’ in the ‘Camera’ menu. (Screenshot1)
Set the view to ‘Top’.(Screenshot2)

Adjust the Sketchup window size for a minimal border between the window and the drawing. (this part is a bit awkward, but it’s the way Sketchup makes up his print area.)(Screenshot3)

Check the Sketchup print-settings in the ‘File’ menu, choose ‘Print Preview’.

On the next window, uncheck following:

- Fit to page

- Use model extends

- Use High Accuracy HLR

You can choose to print in ‘High Definition’ in the dropdown menu

Last thing: make sure the scale is 1 on 1 (whatever the measurement unit).
Press Print ! (screenshot4)
When/If (make a few tries to get it fit) the print preview is on one page, you can go ahead, and push ‘print’. (Screenshot5)

Step 3: Make'em !

For each card-box, choose a matching cardboard color.
Put glue (woodglue) on cardboard, and spread it as good as you can.
Put the printout on the glued cardboard, and make sur there are no wrinkles, press firmly, and let them dry under a big heavy book. (= an assembled collection of pages full of texts or pics :-P )
Once dried out, you can start to cut them out on the outlines.
To be able to fold them correctly (sharp edge) .. we need to go over the folding parts with a cutter, just to make a slight incision in the cardboard. This makes it waaay easier, and cleaner.

Now, the last thing to do is to glue these boxes into shape .. no secrets here .. just get your hands dirty ! :-)
Repeat steps for each box you need.

Step 4: The Case

Well yes, if all the cards are nicely fitted into their own personal box, it's a must to have the complete game stored in 1 spot.

So I decided to make the case too .. yyeeeeyy ..
The case can fit all cardboxes, all rules, all boards, and all figurines. (up to Cataclysm expansion incl.)

Materials Needed for this part:

- 2x 8mm wood sheet (something strong .. plywood i.e.)

- 1x 3mm wood sheet (MDF or similar)

- a saw .. and preferably a table-saw .. cutting straight, gives some advantages here :-D

- a small piece of plexiglass

- sandpaper (180 is good enough)
- wood-glue and nails (and a hammer! ..yes we do! :-) )

- tape, paint, and a strong finisher like 'lacque'. (like it's used on a piano)

- 4 drawer-buttons, and two handles for the case.

By now you should have sketchup, so let's move on .. find the sketchup file of the case on my dropbox.

This contains the 3D project, and the 'cut-map' (needed cuts out of 3 sheets of wood)

It's based on the standard sizes of available wood-sheets (1220mmx600mm).
You will need 2x 8mm (plywood or similar) and 1x 3mm wood (mdf or similar).

Start by printing the cutmap, and start cutting away. (BEWARE: the top, bottom and sides of the case are cut at an angle of 45° for two sides out of 4)
Once everything is cut to size, first thing is to sand the edges clean.
Then we can start by assembling the drawers first. This is to allow the rest of the case to be built around the drawers afterwards. (easy fitting) Always use wood-glue and nails together, this makes it way more sturdy! (it's a heavy game).. once case around the drawers is build, we can cut out the top-window (optional, if you painted your figurines, it's a nice way to display them). A small plexi can fill the gap. You could imagine to add a few leds to illuminate your display.

Finish it off by putting nice handles to the case and buttons ot the drawers.
One might imagine a nice logo, graphic on the side of the box, for the glory of the game !

Step 5: The Figurines

If you paint your figurines, it's always nice to have them displayed in a nice way.
That's the reason why we cut a hole in the roof of our case, in the previous step.
Now having 70+ figurines in a drawer without retainer, makes them subject to falling over, and to scratch off the paint.
To stop this, I decided to magnetize my figurines, and the bottom of the top drawer.

We need these materials:
- 2x Magnetic sheets (depending on the dimensions of your storage)

- Around 80x O rings of suitable diameter, see photo for dimensions.

- Around 80x magnets (not too strong!)

- a glue intended to match plastic and metal (usually Gel-based)

So the game is as follows:
put a ring (with rounded edges downwards) underneath the figurine, a magnet in the center of it, and glue them all together. .. repeat for as long as you see figurines without magnet ! :-)

When done, you just need to cut the magnetic sheets for the bottom of your storage box.. and to top it off, a nice sheet of felt can do magic.

Step 6: The Result !

Here are a few pics with the finished project. (The wheels are not included, as it's just a stand I use for easy painting)
The case is perfectly transportable. Everything fits nicely.
You can choose to adjust the Sketchup-files to your likings.
Please post a pic if you made it, I'd enjoy that very much!
And try not to turn into a toad in your next game !! :-P