Bits and Pieces: One Does Not Simply Walk Into More Doors

(Yes, I went for that pun. Boldly and fearlessly, with reckless disregard for any injuries it may cause!)

One of my earlier crafting projects was to make a small collection of doors to lay out on battle mats and dungeon tiles. They were serviceable, but lacked detail, and probably should have been scaled a little taller and wider. At the time I decided they would do well enough for the short term, and that later after my skills improved I would make some more.

I recently ran across a door-making post on the Tabletop Crafter’s Guild FB page. The poster also uploaded written instructions in PDF form, which included a set of printable templates that could be cut out and glued to cardboard to serve as a cutting guide on a hot wire cutter. (The links above are to a closed group, so non-members won’t be able to access them. I’m in the process of contacting the creator to see if there’s an external link available or if it’s okay for me to host a copy here.)

This was all the impetus I needed to try another round of door-making. I had a handful of XPS scraps that were almost exactly the right size to tape the door templates onto, and each foam block makes three frames and six doors. Because I used the “extra” doors to make frameless, freestanding ones, I ended up with more doors than I could possibly need unless my players venture into the training grounds of a door-knocking religious cult. Because I value variety of doors over quantity of doors, I made them in a few different configurations somewhat randomly.

Hinges and bars across some of the doors were cut from the remains of the Bisquick box I cannibalized for my recent Sheep Chase build addition. The bolts across the straight hinges were very small “seed beads” from a multi-pack I picked up at Walmart. The pull handles were made from necklace ring things looped through slightly larger seed beads. Bases were craft sticks cut to match the width of each door.

The pointy style doors didn’t look as nice to me so I made more of the rounded ones. The “wood” was painted one of two shades of brown, with a smattering of reds, greens, and blues as well.

I have a lot of doors now… but still not enough! Because I also want doors with windows and doors with bars. Double doors and metal doors and doors with locks. Modern doors and sliding glass doors, and why not a bank vault door, for the modern setting in my Mighty Protectors campaign. So even though I’m done with these doors, I’m far from done with doors.

Which is probably a decent metaphor for the attraction and addictiveness of this hobby.