So you want to make some dice?

Making dice starts off as a simple hobby. What do you need?

Well, some PPE, resin, mixing cups* and stirrers**, a long-necked lighter***, and a mold. And, in their most basic form, you can now make dice.
*Disposable plastic drink cups for now, but you will have to throw them away once any remaining resin has hardened.
**Popsicle sticks will do for now.
***Technically you don't need the lighter, but it can help to reduce bubbles.

After getting all of your items ready, put on your PPE. Then follow the instructions on your resin packaging/leaflet carefully.

Epoxy resin is a 2-part resin. You have resin and you have hardener. Many will be a 1:1 ratio, either by weight or by volume (Your leaflet will tell you which of these it is).

Measure carefully into two separate cups, then combine the resin and the hardener. Then, using a stirrer, mix slowly. Really slowly. Even more slowly than that! Mixing should take about 3-5 minutes and your fingers will probably ache by the end of it. Make sure to scrape the sides and bottom of the cup as you mix.

While mixing, you'll see streaks form as the two parts are combined. Then bubbles will form. You can't do anything to stop this; you can, however, mix really slowly to reduce the amount of them.

Ok, so the resin is mixed. Now you are on the clock! Your resin had a 'pot life', the amount of working time you have before it starts to cure. Check your resin's information; this is often around 30 minutes, but does vary between brands and types.
(There are a lot of different techniques which involve leaving the resin to thicken. We aren't talking about that, though, in this post. I'll do a follow-up on techniques at a future date.)

You are ready to pour! Get your mold, and slowly pour in the resin. Pouring slowly and close to the mold opening helps to reduce more bubbles forming, hopefully. Fill each dice cavity to the top and then slightly more so it forms a dome.

Now wait a couple of minutes. This extra waiting time allows for bubbles to rise to the surface of the resin. It can be hard to wait for this stage, but it does help. And when you've waited for that time, look carefully at your mold. Are there bubbles visible? Probably. Take your lighter, and play the flame very lightly and briefly over the resin's surface. This causes the bubbles to pop, because science.

Smear a little resin on the lid, covering the numbers. You only need a small amount; usually I just wipe the lid with the resin that is still on my stirrer. And then gently put the lid on the mold. Molds usually have 'keys' to help you align everything properly.

Now put the mold in an airtight container and forget about it for the next 72 hours. No peeking or lifting the lid. Leave it alone!
(Your resin leaflet may tell you your resin has a shorter cure time, perhaps 24 hours. That's probably true, but it won't achieve full cure until at least 72 hours in 90% of cases.)

After waiting an eternity, take off the lid carefully, and remove the flashing. This is the resin that is not in the mold cavity and is the excess that has come out once the lid is on and the curing has started. Everyone gets some. Even after a year, we get some. Ours is paper-thin; yours wont be when you pour for the first time. Throw the flashing into the bin. It's tempting to keep it "for future projects" You almost definitely wont use it in future projects!

Take your mold and ease the edges of the dice cavities. You want to loosen the edges to prevent ripping your mold. Once you are happy that the cavities are free of any surface resin, you can pop out your dice!

Hurray! You made a set of dice!

What the process above will get you is transparent dice, probably with a huge amount of bubbles, and possibly some voids on the top faces.

I looked all through my photos, and I cannot find even 1 blurry image of the very first dice I made.

So here is a set I made about 3 weeks in.

By this point I had started using alcohol inks and mica powders to colour my resin before pouring.

But the basics stayed the same - cheap mold, resin, mixing equipment.

These still had issues with bubbles and voids.

So I did the sanest thing I have ever done; I joined the dice making subreddit!

There are amazing experts on there who will give advice, encourage you, and answer questions.

Other fantastic sources for beginning to make dice:
Artemis Dice Company's Beginner Dice Making Tutorial Series
Rybonator Rybonator's channel

What I learned from YouTubers and everyone on the Dice Making subreddit changed the dice making game for me, and the others, completely!