Zombie Dice Brain Counters

Zombie Dice is a dice game

from Steve Jackson Games. It's a quick casual beer and pretzels game. You radndomly pick out three dice from a cup and roll them. The goal is to press your luck and get as many brains as possible. Watch out for the shot gun blasts because three of those will end your turn and take away anyt brains you got that round.

Problem with beer and pretzels game is that the beer can make you forget your score. Well fear not players, this is why the brains are here to help you keep track of things.

For this project you will

need:

corn startch (<$1)

baking soda (<$1)

red paint (<$1)

blue paint (<$1)

grey paint, or black and white (<$1)

PVA/white glue (<$2)

paint brush (<$1)

tap water (<$1)

comething small and round with a lip on it (I used a part I had laying around you can use a soda cap or something similar)

So under $10.

Corn Starch Clay:

1 part corn starch

2 parts baking soda

enough water to get a glue like consistency

I used maybe and 1/8 cup measuring cup. Three scoops of the corn starch, six of the baking soda. Adding the water slowly, use the 1/8 cup measuring cup and using a butter knife to mix it. At the begining the stuff will clump up but just break it up and mix it. When it gets to the viscosity between pancake batter and white glue you know you've hit teh sweet spot.

Your microwave may vary but I had mine in for about 90 seconds. I say it is done when it is a bit liek a volcano. Liquid bubly in the middle and soild around the edges. Needless to say it can be hot when it comes out so watch out about getting burnt.

Mix with the butter knife again till it is flaky like instant mash potatoes. You can then pour it out ona counter or paper plate to cool down a little bit.

After it has cooled down enough to not burn your hands start kneading it like dough.

If you are a youngling get your parents to help because you might burn yourself!

Punch off about a ball about

a nickle's worth. Don't worry, we're not messing with chemicals so not getting the exact amount every time isn't importnt. Roll into a ball and deform to an egg or brain shape. Squish it to a little to that the bottom is flat.

Using a popsicle stick or lever end of a nail trimmer press a line down the middle. Hold the end of your round lipped tool and just randomly go up and down the sides and top. Change your grip on the round tool so the arc is going in teh oppiset direction and dow it again. If you need to re-make the brain dent on teh top.

I have a cookie sheet that is beat up and a bit rusted, not good for cooking thigns on anymore but I keep it around for projects like this.

You can either air dry teh clay brains or pop them in the oven for a little bit. Heat the oven up up about 250F put the tray with the brains on it in the oven. After about 5 minutes turn teh oven off and let the brains dry out in there for a few hours. The heat and low humidity will save some time, otherwise you have to wait about 36 hours.

Once again if you are a kid have your parents help with the oven drying!

The brains do not need to be

completely dry to paint them. They do however need to be dry enough so that handeling them do not deform them.

Get yourself a small conatiner of water, a paint brush, a paper plate and your paints out. Squeeze out a blob of red paint on the paper plate. Dip your brush in the water, bring a drop of water over to the edge of the paint and draw some paint and water on teh plate. You want the paint to be ruper runny and watery. Keeping your paint watered down put a red coat of paint on the brains. For the non-crafty non-painty people you want the paint to be thin so it runs all along the cracks we made as the brain grooves.

Put them off to dry on a peice of cardboard. If you have a box fan put them in front of the fan to help dry. Good thing about this type of clay is that it seems to soak up paint like that.

Once the red coat is dry, it can still be a little tacky though. I think mine were dry in about 15 minutes and it was raining outside. So they dry quick...

I'm using a squirt of blue

paint in the lid of a salad dressing jar. Mix the blue paint with some water, about a 1:1 ratio should be good. The idea is to get it to flow down the center brain groove and out to some of the brain grooves via capilary action. Adjust how wet your brush is to the amount you want the blue to flow. You don't want to completely fill the red grooves. How much blue to use is up to you. As Bob Ross would say they are your happy little brains.

Once again set out to dry.

If you don't have grey paint

than squeeze out a bit of white paint on the paper plate and just a few drops of black. You can use your brush, the popsicle stick or anything you want to mic the two colors till you ahve a shade of grey you like.

You're going to want to "dry brush" the grey on. Before we wanted the paint to flow into the nooks and crannies, now we want to stop the paint from flowing into those nooks and crannies. Don't worry, if you don't know what dry brushing is or have heard of it but don't know anything about it.... It's hald teh reason I said to squeeze your paint onto a paper plate.

If you mixed your paint with the brush it is now soaked in teh paint. If you didn't grab some paint on your brush. Start painting an empty section of the paper plate. Now do another empty section of plate. If the paint is going on a bit splotchy that is what you want, that is dry brushing.

We want to dry brush the raised sections of the brain, trying not to get too much paint into the grooves. If you're new at it and get some paint into the grooves no big loss. You can always make a few new brains or do a wash coat afterwards (a wash coat is the same thing we did for the blue paint).

Also, if this craft stuff is all new to you, don't worry if things aren't perfect. You're friends and family who play Zombie Dice will be more impressed with the brains as a cool idea than criticising them. If they do than you need better friends :p

Any ways set the brains out to dry, once again. Setting them outside in the sun or by a fan will help speed up the process.

For a last step I mixed some

white glue and water and coated them twice, allowing even more drying between the coats. I was trying for a tiny bit of a glossy sheen as well as some extra durabilty for storeage and transit.

It's the idea as teh paint wash. Mix the white glue in with some water, about a 1:1 mix. Set them to dry outside in the sun and wind and it will go a lot quicker. I didn't have any wax paper to put them on so I used a shopping bag.

Happy Gaming!