Custom Dungeon and Dragons Keychain
My custom Dungeons and Dragons Keychain Shaker keychains are a new interactive product that I introduced to my online store and my artist alley booth.
The idea and goal behind this new project/product is to bring an interactive and personal experience to customers. They have the chance to create their own personal keychain that has meaning to them or someone they care for.
Project Design
I was inspired by another artist who did their own custom shaker keychain with an apothecary theme. I thought that was such a great idea, I want to make my own! However, I needed to do a theme that best fits me and my art.
Well, I love roleplaying games, and I then decided to go with a Dungeons and Dragons theme!
I have my idea a keychain shaker that will be a D20 (20 sided Dice) and the mini charms will be Dungeons and Dragons related!
Now that I have my theme chosen with Dungeons and Dragons, how will I execute this?
There is so much to D&D that I needed to scale down what was going to be included in this project.
I decided to keep to the classic themes of D&D and that's:
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Races
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Classes
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Weapons
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Spells
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Dice
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Dragons
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Monster
I have picked the main themes of what I'm going to be drawing for the mini charms, how can I add my own themes to it.
Well duh I'm obssed with corgis, I have my Pride corgis so the races will corgis! I have also been asked a lot of times by customers if I have any cat related items. I don't but this time I thought it would be a great idea to add cats to this as well.
Great we have our theme of cats and corgis in dungeons and dragons with a list of what mini charms I will be drawing.
I knew I would have to do my research of what was this going to cost me.
I use Vograce for everything when it comes to manufactering my acrylic keychains. They offer custom shaker keychains. I decided to stick with Vograce for this project because I am familiar with them.
Lets get drawing!
Over 60 mini charm pieces were created for this project. All hand-drawn by me.
I first started with the corgi races. I just created a base corgi drawing, then added racial elements for each race.
My biggest challenge was making a half-elf, gnome, and halfling look different without a body to show height differences. But I thought of other folklore aspects for each race.
I kept all the cats the same as the corgis. I don't want to drive myself insane.
I kept all the designs very simple with no extra shading because the details would be gone. These mini charms are only going to be 1cm.
Keeping it simple still with a paw print and classic elements of each class.
Only went with generic weapons. Trying to add special items would be too niche.
Not everyone has encountered the same magical or special weapon.
I wanted to keep the same number of spells and weapons. I had to do some digging with what are the most popular spells and spells that can be used for each class.
Had to keep the ratio of spells even for all the classes and not just one.
The total time it took to draw, color, and use Photoshop on each charm to turn them into a PNG took me about a month and a half.
I didn't draw much of anything else except for these charms. Gotta love that ADHD hyper focus.
I thought about doing a full D&D dice set, but that would mean making 49 more charms for each dice and each color.
Maybe that can be my next project of dice bag shaker keychains.
Keeping on theme, I changed the monsters to be either corgi or cat themed. But keep some classics.
How much is this going to cost me?
Well, that really depends on how big I want to make the shaker keychain and how many I want to buy at once. I made the keychain the smallest size at 2.5" with 6 mini charms per order.
A lot of boring math and ordering later, the total would come out to $428.40 (without tax or shipping). That's not terrible, but to spend that much on a new item is a big risk.
Now we have to display it just right!
Because this is such a unique item, I need a unique way to display it and have people order at the booth!
My display for the shaker keychain. I put both the rainbow and black shaker keychain filled with extra charms up for people to see what they are and how big it is. I used my corgi and my cat amd turned them into a half orc paladin and a teifling rouge.
The best placement for items that you want people to see is at eye level. I changed the layout of my booth so that way the Shaker Keychains could be added.
The easiest way I could make a menu card for ordering a custom D&D shaker would be to keep it simple, with simple instructions on the front and the charms on the back. I then printed them out on an 8.5"x 11" piece of paper and laminated them. People mark their choices with dry-erase markers to make it reusable for me.