First game graces the board

So the games have begun. :) Two games played on the asphalt side despite still being flat black, we weren't picky, it's all about the surface feeling/looking right. The dice rolled just as well as any other color and the sand didn't come up/off.

 

1000 point game in 4x4 mode

And put a few picts up from the Remembrancers. (Remembrancers being the in game "fluff" term for historic recorders/journalists) One win for the Imperialists, and another for the xenos. :)

 

Well, last warrior unit of THY-26062 is about to be recycled

The Emperor can only do so much once you're this close to a Wraith

I was on schedule for this weekend on the gray layer, washing however my white acrylics are so old that they went granular and dry. No amount of thinner or water changed the clumps into paint. So new white is on the shopping list, and am getting a nice burnt umber to give a shot to the flock siding and see how that goes. 

The flip side of the board will be flocking and static grass, sealed with PVA and water. Hopefully this will work, you'll know as soon as I do as I'll post up the results soon as they're done.

Special thanks to theFreeBootaz who've been helping out with tips and tricks towards getting this board done. Some of the big ones; Paint both sides of the board or over time it'll warp, Seal your painted surfaces or you'll have mishaps, and finally some excellent formulas on paint mixes... For those mixes you'll have to subscribe though. :)

Urban terrain board - Base painting

The terrain board is now in it's next step of painting the base coat. One jar of black  acrylic paint, a little water and some play sand got me a nice deep base coat with some solid asphalt texture.

Here's some key things I learned;
First - never use a good house painting brush your wife just gets mad, and mad wives are no fun.
Second - Get a smaller brush than you think you need, sure the 5" brush will cover a lot of space faster, it just won't do it necessarily better. By having a smaller brush you're able to make the texture less patterned.
Third - Add water to the acrylic. Seriously, thin it a little more than you think you need to because once you add that sand in (slowly!) you're going to make a painting mud. Keep stirring before each and every application of paint.
Fourth - Don't paint, stipple. Gently dip the brush into the mix, make a glob on the board and stipple it out spreading it. Not only does this minimize patterning it eliminates brush strokes, something that the sand in the bristles will accentuate.
Fifth - Have fun! Don't stress about how perfect or not this is going to be, it's just a base layer for all the cool stuff to come. Enjoy the process!

Next up on the project will be drybrushing grey down heavily, then making a black wash. Lines will then be made using a marker/pencil then dry brushing of a deep warm brown (reddish hues) will be laid down over the lines, then a cool brown (bluish hues) will provide highlights.Again another healthy layer of black wash, thinned out further still.

After that pegs to hold it together, then the terrain to put on top. 

Stipple, not brushing. Stippling was done upper right, brushing elsewhere.

The very wet result. As of this morning it's completely matte and rock hard.

Remember, you need a place to actually let it all dry. This worked very well and was dry overnight.

Back again! Terrain board in progress

Hey all,

Just posting this more as a log entry than anything and to go back over what I did to date. That said, I'm planning on making an urban style board, and putting pieces of standalone terrain on the board once completed.

So the issue I had is that I have a small house and no way to store a board. That said I also wanted something that was modular and can be easily stowed away while offering multiple options for terrain playability. It also had to fit on an ikea table that wasn't 4x6, so the segments needed to interlink somehow. What I decided on was 2' by 2' 3/4" underlayment plywood. MDF was not chosen due to weight and cost.

So, I had the plywood sheet ripped into 2'x2' squares, took six of them and have marked off three locations per tile. These will be pre-drilled then outfitted with wooden dowels which will act as pegs for stabilizing the board. With the remaining two tiles I plan on cutting, gluing and otherwise causing all manner of engineering to make two dice boxes/miniature staging zones for the players.

I'll likely be using some "basics" acrylic paints and some sand to make the base coat on each tile, adding lines, cracks and other elements right onto the plywood, adding features with poly/Styrofoam and gluing them on.

Looking forward to sharing the process as I continue tonight and through the winter.

Board squared

Marked for the drill