Eurasian chess is a hybrid between Xiangqi (Chinese chess) and Western (FIDE) chess. The pieces, their movement, movement restrictions, and the layout of the board are really sort of halfway between its two 'parents', and it also has a piece (the vao) which isn't part of either, but is inspired by both.
I was keen to create a Eurasian chess set myself. For pieces, I decided to use the caps of certain medicine tubes, because these combine both the flat discs of xiangqi and the three-dimensionality of Western chess pieces.
I painted the pieces for the two sides silver and gold, with the aim of painting the various pictograms, in blue and red, respectively, on them later.
As to the board, I again wanted to combine playing on the squares (as per Western chess) and playing on the lines (as per xiangqi). I still had some chequerboard pattern self-adhesive vinyl left from when I made a
'westernised' xiangqi set.
And on this I added lines through the centre of the squares with the use of gold and silver self-adhesive strips. Two colours to highlight the home-halves of each side, which the king is not allowed to leave (similar to the palaces in xiangqi, but less restricted here).
Done this way, the pieces can be said to play on the squares and lines at the same time!
Back to the pieces, they now needed to have the various pictograms painted on them.
And then the board needed to be finished properly, using draught excluder strips to mark the edges of the play area.
Decided to use three strips per side, and it does look good, I think!
Finishing the edges ....
Pieces done, board done, one more thing to do!
Definitely a full set unlike any I've created before. Both the board, with play on the squares as well as the lines, and the pieces, as 'raised discs', combine elements of the main forms of Asian and European chess. Whaddayathink?
