[Magus 23]

Here are the chips I designed and produced for my home games. (These are actually "fake" photos made from the digital masters, both because the actual chips are over at a friend's house, and because this shows the designs at their best.)

The chips are "deluxe" eight-stripes, 1 1/4" labels, and there's a different design for each side. (Actually, I'm having trouble tracking down any more; I suspect the chips may have been discontinued.)




I'll post more info on the design concept and development shortly. But in a nutshell, the flaming Royal Flush was my original concept, but in redesigning it for a "classier" design (inspired by both the Bellagio chips and the Paulson "Casino de Isthmus" look), I redid the whole thing in Illustrator and created a more "classic" flip-side design. (I'm also working on a variation of at least the flip-side design for the Protege chip design contest, so you may be seeing more before too long.)

Let me know what you think, and I'll post more details shortly!

[poislb]

Very cool!!

[Wylecoyo]

Very nice. I like the concept and they look great.

[KYBill]

You did a great job !

[rakdesign]

NICE DESIGN!...

Have you seen the monaco chips?..i got sample of those and the faux clay..very similar feel..and your labels would look AWESOME in those..I only offer this advice because I use those chips you have mocked up to make card protectors and as stackable playable chips they are the most brittle sounding "plasticy" chips I have handled...just advice but you may want to give them a look...

here is a link... (for bad reppers..I AM NOT AFFILIATED WITH THE SITE I AM LINKING TO>>>JUST FOR INFORMATION)...

BTW..I think they are discontinued

[SandmanDC]

Nice job!!!

[Magus 23]

I just saw those Monaco chips a few days back, and I do agree that the inlay would look pretty sweet there. I had gotten my originals from the site you linked to (I am also not affiliated, BTW, just to be on the safe side here), but yeah, they no longer stock the ones I've got.

And these are definitely plastic-feeling. Going forward, I'd like to get some nice clay chips, but I wanted something to start with. With that detailed a design, I wanted to go with a 1 1/4" design space (and I was partly inspired by the oversized Bellagio look), and at the time, there weren't a lot of options available. And since at that point, we were playing with dollar-aisle-at-Target dice chips, I figured anything was a step up.

Right now, rather than spending more on a new set (which wouldn't match the ones I've got anyway), I'm leaning toward saving my money for real clay. I'll have to see how the inlay works when scaled down to 1", but I think it'll still hold up.

[Magus 23]

Forgive me for indulging in a little self-important bravado for a moment, but I thought I'd go a little more into the development of the design. Feel free to tune out if this is of no interest.

I started with the concept of the "Prometheus Casino," so fire would naturally have to play a part. I then thought of the idea of a flaming royal flush fan, and started working from there. The first step was to come up with a custom Ace of Spades logo design; I wanted to make sure everything was original, and I wasn't copying any existing trademarked design. But since the final image was going to be really small, it had to be something that would show up well at that size -- the Ace of Spades was really my best option.

Some (okay, a lot of) work in Illustrator, and I was off and running. (The stylized Eye of Horus in a triangle is my personal logo -- as a part-time indie filmmaker, I try to stick it in all of my movies.) The result was the following:



I then had to get it onto the card...

[Magus 23]

My first design attempt was done in Photoshop. I took a picture of myself holding the fanned cards (actually, my six-year-old took the photo, against a black backdrop so I could matte it out), and I superimposed the Ace of Spades design (adding the appropriate perspective shift), then tweaked the color and added the flames digitally.



I also tried an alternate flip-side design, but as much fun as I had doing it, it was way too close to a design someone else was doing for their own custom chip offerings (forgive me, but I can't remember who offhand -- though I've no doubt someone here will probably recognize where I got this "lighted sign" idea from), and I wanted to make sure my design was truly original (or, if I was "taking inspiration" from other sources, that the sources in question were what I was really looking for). But at the very least, I had no desire to basically appropriate someone else's design outright, so this design wasn't going to get used.



But most significantly, as attached as I had become to the design (especially after the amount of work involved), it didn't look real, like something a real casino would produce. In any case, it certainly wasn't the tone I was going for. But still, I thought I might be able to salvage something...

[jello-broom]

The chips you posted up top are nice ... I can't say anything bad about them ... but why didn't you go for something like you posted above? The full colored ones ... even with your hand in the image there with the burning cards, it still looks cool. Those would've looked great too.