A second Shogi set

I wrote about making a Shogi set many years ago, and that in hindsight I wasn't that happy with it. Too gaudy, not 'Japanese' at all. So I decided to try make another set. Rather than make the pieces myself, I bought a traditional set of pieces off eBay, and decided to focus my creative attention solely on the board.

As a basis for the board, I got myself a rubberwood cutting board. I felt the colour would fit nicely with the pieces, and also liked the 'feel' of the wood.

I wanted a simple board, and uhm-ed and ah-ed quite a bit as to how to create the squares. Got ideas and then rejected them again later when I came to the realisation it just didn't quite work. To make a long story short, I finally decided on simple pyrography: burn the lines into the board, using a soldering iron.












Must admit I was pretty pleased with how it turned out! Plus it gave me an unexpected bonus: burning the lines into the wood smells quite nice.

Traditional Japanese shogi boards sometimes have short 'feet' of some sort, turning the board into a very low table. I wanted to do something along those lines, and got myself four wooden half-spheres, to serve as 'table legs'.

Final flourish was to burn the Japanese characters for 'shogi' into the board. That area of the board is where the captured pieces are to be kept, in preparation for a 'drop', and in clear view of the opponent.

Which means the board is ready for the pieces.

I'm much happier with this simple shogi board; leaves the old one far behind!

Kama Sutra set

What little evidence there is points to India as the birthplace of chess, so I was keen to create a real Indian set. Looking for inspiration on eBay, I stumbled across a listing of a resin set of Kama Sutra pieces. What could be more Indian?

As to the board, my ideas gradually converged on making a quilted board from sari fabric. Keep in mind that I'd never done any quilting, in any way, shape or form ...

Sari fabric, in four colours, was quickly ordered.

Why four colours, you might ask? Two colours for the 'white' and 'black' squares (green and purple, respectively), one colour for the edges of the board (blue), and, in a nod to the 'ashtapada' board that Chaturanga, the oldest known form of chess, was played on, red for the special ashtapada squares.

By the way, current thinking is that this ashtapada board was used for a race game, and then used for playing chess at a later date; the marked squares were likely entry and exit squares for the game, or possibly safe squares.

Back to my Kama Sutra set, the playing area of the board was constructed from 64 sari squares, in green, purple, and red, sewn together.

Then, blue strips were added along the sides of the playing area.

Quilting wadding to give the board a bit of volume, and sewing together of top surface, wadding, and a large blue square of sari fabric that was to form the underside of the board.












Next step was to sew between all the squares, and thus the playing area became fully quilted!

Final step was to finish off the edges of the board.

And the board is done!

So all that remains to be done is to put the pieces on the board.

The board is certainly not perfect, but given that I've got very limited experience using a sewing machine; that sari fabric is very difficult work with (for me, at least; it's very slippery and stretchy, and no amount of pins stopped that); and that I'd never done any quilting, I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out.

The pieces, the board and the colours all work together, and it's definitely unlike any chess set or board I ever made.

Martian Chaturaji

I couldn't say no to a small chess set, with magnetic metal Egyptian-style pieces, listed on eBay ...

Of course, it could be used for modern FIDE chess, but I wanted something different. One option would be to set the board up for Chaturaji, an old Indian four-player chess variant, but I'd already made a Chaturaji set in the past.

Googling around for other ideas, I stumbled across a web-page on Martian Chaturaji. Martian?? I thought only Jetan was played on the planet called Barsoom by its inhabitants? Turns out the name ultimately comes from a sci-fi novel, Empty City, in which there is mention of a board game called 'Icehouse' and a Martian princess. The Icehouse game was actually commercialised, and Martian Chaturaji is a further development of that.

There are several differences between Martian and Indian Chaturaji, mostly in the starting line-up and what happens when one of the kings has been mated (which is linked to the unique, immobile 'throne' piece, which is actually outside the board).

The four players in the game form two partnerships and, normally, the four sets of pieces would have four different colours. Given that the Egyptian-style pieces have a clear 'direction', the pieces from the two members of the pair are already differentiated by their orientation, so no need to do any further painting!

Neat little set, eh?

Four Seasons chess set - spring

The Libro de Axedrez, Dados e Tablas ('Book of Chess, Dice and Tables') was commissioned by King Alfonso X of Castille and completed in 1283. It is one of Europe's oldest surviving books on games. The book contains chess problems as well as several chess variants, and among those variants is one referred to as 'Ajedrex de los Quatro Tiempos', or 'Four Seasons Chess'.

Four Seasons Chess is a variant for four players, each having eight pieces (king, rook, bishop, knight and four pawns). The board is the normal 8 x 8 chequered board, but has an additional cross to aid the direction of movement of the pawns. The four players represent the four seasons, as well as four elements and four humors. For instance, the black pieces represent autumn as well as 'earth' and 'melancholy'.

I wanted to create a set for Four Seasons Chess, over the time span of four seasons. For spring, the aim was to create the basic board from a square of plywood. The squares and cross are painted brown and yellow, as depicted in the Libro de Axedrex.

Finally, the edges (and underside) of the board are painted green.

Basic board done! Why the edges are so broad you'll find out in the next phase: summer!