Sharing my contribution to this years Secret Santa gift exchange:
My recipient has an incredible DVD collection and I wanted to contribute something one-of-a-kind.
My inspiration for the design came from this promotional art used for the Justice League: Snyder Cut release on HBO, and decided to recreate it using a blank steel dvd case found on ebay. Here's a rough 2D mockup I used to get started:
The cases came blank with no markings/logos/etc which was perfect. You can find these on ebay in large & small quantities.
To form the case I made a 2-part mold to imprint the design. I have a small desktop cnc that was perfect for this. I used two blocks of scrap HDPE.
I had never done any metal forming and wasn't sure how the HDPE would hold up against the steel case but it ended up working beautifully! Some of the details were a little softer than I would have liked but overall it worked with the aesthetic I was going for.
Once the case was done I printed a handful of labels to make it feel official. These were printed and cut using a combination of inkjet printing and cutting/sketching with a craft machine on some basic label paper.
I was rushed towards the end so didn't get many process shots of the final assembly and weathering but basically I hit everything with sandpaper and/or scotch-bright to help sell it as a real-world object and added some interior cardboard panels and a handful of faux polaroids of the cast using screenshots from the 'Justice is Gray' edition. I didn't go quite as weathered as the original key art, but the recipient can always leave it outside during the next apocalypse if they want the full effect.
My recipient has an incredible DVD collection and I wanted to contribute something one-of-a-kind.
My inspiration for the design came from this promotional art used for the Justice League: Snyder Cut release on HBO, and decided to recreate it using a blank steel dvd case found on ebay. Here's a rough 2D mockup I used to get started:
The cases came blank with no markings/logos/etc which was perfect. You can find these on ebay in large & small quantities.
I had never done any metal forming and wasn't sure how the HDPE would hold up against the steel case but it ended up working beautifully! Some of the details were a little softer than I would have liked but overall it worked with the aesthetic I was going for.
Once the case was done I printed a handful of labels to make it feel official. These were printed and cut using a combination of inkjet printing and cutting/sketching with a craft machine on some basic label paper.
Here's the final product:
