I made a whole chess set from scratch because I'm insane

Chess .

It's a fun game , but I'm bad at it .

So I'll make a sculpture instead .

But buying a chess set for this would be too easy .

So I'm making my own that won't take long .

Right , right .

To start off .

I am sculpting the board with clay .

I'm using a thick cardboard for the base , but it got a little warped .

So I'll remove it later .

Chess boards are usually very smooth , but that will be tortured to paint later .

So instead I'm going for a textured stone slab look this way .

It looks more interesting and provides me with a little coloring book where I can stay within the lines to add the stone texture .

I'm going over the clay with foil .

Real rocks are also great for this , but my rock was not rocklike enough .

So it didn't work .

After baking , I removed the cardboard and replaced it with a piece of foam , cardboard , clay and foam .

Don't go together that well .

So I'm using contact cement spray to attach them .

You spray it on both surfaces , press them together and it's instantly bonded forever to hide the seams .

And my poor phone cutting skills , I'm going over the edges with wall filler , mixed with glue .

This then gets sanded but I left it pretty messy because it helps with the rock look to make the chess pieces .

I started with 32 bases .

The base is made with super sculpey , but the rest is sculpted with cos clay .

I won't bore you with making every piece and just show you a few .

Most of them start with a base that looks just like this and only the top changes .

This is a queen .

So I'm giving her a little crown .

Ok .

The most different piece is of course , the horse .

It was quite a pain to make four of them because I have never liked making many of the same thing .

But that goes for the whole set .

The eyes have been pre baked to not smoosh them .

Then I added the main , I realized only after baking that I accidentally gave it a mohawk .

The king is made the same way as the queen only .

He gets a fancier crown and he's a little taller .

The whole process looks very quick and simple , but making the whole set look forever , especially getting the pieces to look .

The same half of the set gets painted black and the other half white .

I painted the black pieces by hand and was planning to do the same for the white .

But then I decided , I don't hate myself and bought some spray paint .

I still had to go over some imperfections by hand , but it saved me a lot of time .

Then I went over some details with a gold highlight and all the little holes I made earlier get filled with super glue and some golden balls .

I have no idea where I got these .

I found them in my stuff and decided it's time to use them .

The color scheme for this project is not too exciting .

The board also gets painted black and white since it's stone , I went over the sides with gray and then different lighter dry brushes .

I also dry brush , the dark squares .

So it doesn't look so simple and I think it ended up looking a bit like marble .

Then I'm going over everything with a black wash .

This way , the light squares won't stand out so much for the main sculptures .

I'll start by mixing some epoxy sculpt .

You are supposed to wear gloves , but turns out I'm out .

So I took my kitchen gloves .

It kept sticking to the gloves though .

So it's not really the best option .

I'm putting it on the armatures and once it dries , I'll have a really sturdy base to work on .

I'm starting with the queen .

I spent a lot of time making her base body , but you can't even see almost any of it .

In the end result .

I pre baked her fingers and glued them on with super glue .

And of course , it's mandatory to glue your fingers as well .

At least once when working with superglue , I then covered the hands with more clay .

Her hands turned out extremely ugly , but I'll hide them later .

I'm using both clays here as well .

The darker one is scopy and the lighter one is cos clay .

I got both of them in medium firmness , but cos clay is way too soft for me .

So I kind of hated working with it , but it works really great for thinner details because it's more flexible so it bends instead of breaking .

After finishing this project , I ordered some extra firm cos clay and that one is perfect for me .

So I'll probably work with it more in the future , not sponsored by the way , but you know , feel free to hit me up .

I didn't intend to make her dress so fluffy , but it's actually really hard to roll out this really soft clay .

I then gave her a corset and added some details as well .

Nothing too fancy .

Her arms are also a little ugly .

So I'm hiding them on their braces , sculpting faces is what I'm worst at .

So I'm giving her a mask instead , but I think it fits pretty well because she is a chess piece and it makes her look a bit less human .

And then I added a crown .

I tried to make it look somewhat similar to the style of the actual chest piece .

I wish I had that extra firm clay at this point in the process because working on the crown with soft clay was horrible .

Lastly , I gave her a short cape with a very high neck cover to hide her bald head .

Then I painted her white with golden details .

I think half of the time I've worked on this project has just been me trying to paint something white .

I think I will never make anything white again unless I get an airbrush .

She also gets golden balls in her crown just like the chess piece .

I also added some chains to hold her cape .

But this was hard to film because it was even harder to do .

At one point I just gave up and did it off camera to hide her hideous fingers and to give her a weapon , I'm adding a chain to her hands and to hold it in place , I'll add a bit of super glue .

She is facing off against a horse , but it would be kind of weird to just make a regular horse .

So I'm making a horseman instead .

He also gets pre baked hand armatures .

But this time without my DNA glued on as well , the body is pretty normal looking apart from the horse legs .

I tried a bit harder to make his fingers since I can't hide them .

So if they're ugly , they're ugly .

I'm texturing the legs before adding the head .

So it doesn't get in the way , then some eyeballs and a bit of clay later , we've got a pretty good looking lizard man .

Not really what I'm going for though .

So adding some ears and a mane will help shape it into a horse .

I should have made the head a bit larger though .

He is looking a bit naked , so I'll cover him up with some cloth and add some strips around his arms .

Lastly , he gets claws .

It doesn't really make sense , but neither does a horse having hands at all .

So I think it's ok .

Then a quick layer of black paint and golden details .

All that's left is to put everything together and that's it .

Thank you for the support over on Patreon and thanks for watching .

I'll see you next time .

Bye .