Bling Out Your Games With Sharpie Paint Pens

Have you ever looked at the special upgrade packages available for some games and wished they weren’t so expensive? Have you thought you might like to “bling out” your game just a little bit so it’s a bit more personal? What I am about to show you will change your life! Or at least give you something to do on a rainy afternoon…

First, go to your favorite hobby store (or online retailer) and order some of these:

Sharpie Oil Paint Pens
Sharpie Oil Paint Pens

Here’s why. The slide show below shows the Wound / Frostbite tokens from Dead of Winter. They’re punched out of standard game boards, so of course while they look nice on the top and bottom the sides are rather plain. Plus since it’s cardboard, they’re susceptible to delamination (where the layers separate). What I do is pick an appropriate color (white in this case) and then use the pens to “paint” the outside edge of the token!

  • Dead of Winter Wound Tokens - Plain
    Dead of Winter Wound Tokens - Plain

The results, in my opinion, are outstanding. Some of the lighter colors take multiple coats to get a nice shiny finish, but the effort is worth it. My wound tokens no longer look like cardboard; they look like I spent a ton of money on fancier acrylic or other custom tokens! I saw this idea posted first on the Fantasy Flight X-Wing forum and shamelessly stole borrowed it. Here’s an example of a before / after picture of some X-Wing shield tokens.

X-Wing Shield Tokens - Plain versus Painted
X-Wing Shield Tokens – Plain versus Painted

Those were a lot harder to paint mostly because of the irregular edges, but not only do I like the end result but the light blue Sharpie pen color seems to match as if they designed it that way. 🙂

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