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Hey guys,
while 8th edition around the corner me and my friend don't have better to do than to make a new and better gaming board for years to come (who I'm kidding). On the second pictures you can see the former board made with fish tank sand.. biggest problem was that it was attached with a 15 euro can of spray glue and every time you even just look at the whole board some more sand falls off..

So far we've done four 2x4 feet boards with static mountains and I've scratch build some wrecked buildings. Those modules can be turned and placed in many different ways, also you can turn half of them 90 degrees for more variety. Lego dublo's are a treasure to own when planning stuff ahead!

My plan is to give the sand another PVA&water 50/50 mix and then use a latex house paint (quite close to agrellan earth) on the whole board, except the rocky slopes. Plan is also to give washes to whole board and the buildings. I've done some test washing with mixing acrylic paint and rinse aid but somehow the paint seems to just glot up and not mix well with the rinse aid. -> easier to just try water, paint and a drop of dishwasher (Fairy)?

What about the board itself, deserty paint with self made nuln oil wash does the trick? Or anyone have better recommendations. We both have based our mini's with agrellan earth and middenland tuffts. I've purchased couple small cans of three different coloured static grass/turf etc and plan to give some touches here and there on the gaming board. Also natural small rocks might give some more texture to rocky slopes. Should I paint the sand first and the apply the rocks or the other way around?

Next with the buildings are dry brush the walls with lighter paint, give some brownish and blackish washes here and there and paint the sand. Should be tabletop ready then!

Well anyways feel free to give some boosting and tips... Here's some pictures. Got tons of pictures from almost every phase of the process so far, but this forum is full of WIP pictures of modeling so hope this is enough and not too much..

Its looking good so far. i like your dog.

for the sand issue, you could try and do wet water technique.

iso propal alcohol in a spray bottle and spray it on a section.
pva + water in a spray bottle, spray it on before the alcohol drys. it should let the glue settle in and hold everything better than just spraying the whole thing with glue alone. let it dry and do it a few more times till you are happy with the sticktivity

painting its gona be... fun? personally i would get a rattle can brown. fine some cheap artist acrylic that is a shade lighter than that then dry brush the crap out of it.

Though make sure the whole thing is sealed super well if the base is foam. because spray paint will melt foam.

You may want to consider some variety in the sizes of rock, especially at the base of those hill sections. ROlling in a mix of bigger sand and small rocks to the base of those will add a lot of naturalism.

The paint scheme on the flat surfaces will be key too. If you're going with brown that's fine, but I'd recommend at least some mottling with a brown-green here and there, even just a hint will help a lot. Static grass and shizz like that is out because it won't survive being played on. Also, I;d recommend a wider range of dark to lighter browns for the same reason - to help relieve the monotony of too much of one colour.

I like it though, nice work. I wish I bad a basement.


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And yeah, seal the crap out of that with PVA and whatnot if you're going to use spray on it.


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I was trying to think of a good example of what I was getting at with the mottled flat spaces. The board that best exemplifies what I mean is the board they use in WHFB 3rd Ed for the demo shots. The one picture i could find of it doesn't really do it justice because it's covered in models, but if you know anyone with the oldschool Hardback 3rd Ed book give it a look. Here's the one pic I could find that's similar:

Hmm,
thanks for your insights.

Is the iso propal alcohol sealing neccesary if you are painting the sand after couple treatments of pva&water with latex house paint? Spray can sounds lot easier, but I'm hoping that I can thin the paint down a bit so it goes smooth without brush stroke lines showing.

I'll definitely add some rocks, question still remains that should I add the extra rocks before of after the latex paint thing?

The reason I'm thinking using beige paint (actually shown in one piece of wreck building) is that it's close to desert color. I'm picturing in my head a deserty rural environment where there's only random places with some grass, some torched.. where most of the flat areas are covered with sand. If you google "rural desert" you'll get the idea. Should I still darken the base color and highlight it to become more deserty?

Anyways, tomorrow I've got more time for this project, real (W/L)ife problems consume too much time..

A couple of coats of watered PVA and brushed-on paint will be fine. It's the accelerant in spray paint that eats the foam, and both the PVA and house paint are pretty waterproof (enough for your purposes anyway).

I'd add the rocks before - you'll probably want to add a little more sand around them to help them blend in. Then you paint work will all match nicely.

If you want desert keep the colour light. You can always dry brush closer to bone. Plus you're planning on some green and some darker brown scorched areas - you'll be fine I think.

And I get that the colour palette in that example isn't what you were going with at all, it was just an example of using a mixture of darker and brighter brown tones and green to add variety to a flat surface.

Could mix a bit of dish washer rinse aid with water and spray that instead of alcohol, won't evaporate as fast.

Having done various model rail boards sand onto pva or spray glue is ok, sealed with water/pva though its like concrete - a wet water helps the glue flow.

Expect it to take a few days to fully dry, its work waiting.

also worth adding more gravel/small stones here and there, bits of broken up cork is good as well - add sand and seal the same way.

Agree with the above on spraying brown then dry brushing, you can brush it with emulsion, dilute with a bit of water and use two coats to get it to flow better. Drybrush a lighter brown, then use a few other shades from match pots of browns in places to vary it, make bits look drier and bits look wetter.

then take a few greens and dry brush, doesn't need much but its a nice touch.

vary the browns to clay colours for deserts etc and it should look fine - for something to look like sand get some ready mix filler and add that, sprinkle a bit of sand and job done.

the actual boards with the hills look amazing though, especially as you have space to hide behind hills and not just sit on top of them

looking gooooodddd

Xirax wrote:
Hmm,
thanks for your insights.

Is the iso propal alcohol sealing neccesary if you are painting the sand after couple treatments of pva&water with latex house paint? Spray can sounds lot easier, but I'm hoping that I can thin the paint down a bit so it goes smooth without brush stroke lines showing.

I'll definitely add some rocks, question still remains that should I add the extra rocks before of after the latex paint thing?

The reason I'm thinking using beige paint (actually shown in one piece of wreck building) is that it's close to desert color. I'm picturing in my head a deserty rural environment where there's only random places with some grass, some torched.. where most of the flat areas are covered with sand. If you google "rural desert" you'll get the idea. Should I still darken the base color and highlight it to become more deserty?

Anyways, tomorrow I've got more time for this project, real (W/L)ife problems consume too much time..

Not 100% necessary but helps makes sure that the sand wont flak off too easily.

better to do it right the first time than to go back and fix it over and over again. or get sand all over the house

Dish soap also does work but it takes longer to dry as its been pointed out.

if its going to be a bleached desert then no real point in darkening it besides a little near the rocky points.

i think you could just do beige than drybrush with white/cream color.

Been a while since I've managed to get stuff done, done like 3-4 evening with my friend and now we are at point where we would appreciate some pointers again.

What next?

1. Would you wash & dry brush?
2. Would you just dry brush?
3. Would you add flock? Like mentioned before, I have three different colors of flock?
4. Would you add more grass on the desert?
5. After all is done, we are planning to just soak the damn thing in 50/50 pva&water mix with a "water spray thing", enough for sealing?
6. Suggestion how to continue, new ideas are always welcome..

Here's some pics.














Encouragement is always welcome! Atleast that former board shown in some pics is starting to look stupidly mediocre..

Ps.
Only a week until LGS has our double dark imperium and indexes! I have no clue why I'm getting a double primaris set when I'm not convinced they should be part of my BA or even DA force anyday

Looks really nice! I love the terracing.

Its looking pretty good. especially with the stronger overhead lights looks like a very dry desert which i like.

i think the only things i can think of for improvement is that the boarder between the dark rock and sand is really abrupt. i think you could get some more black rocks around the edges might make it look like its been eroding over time. though it might hurt usability near them.

I agree with the strong contrast between rocks and desert. Rocks might do the trick for sure, but that would be slow to make, also it would narrow the gaps between the rocks more and would make it hard for the vehicles to fit in.

What do you guys think would it be possible to fade the contrast with the fore-mentioned flock, if I'd just make less than an inch lines with stronger green, then another inch with 60% density and more torched colors and a final inch with 20% density only the torched flock colors used. Do this kinda flocking on both edges (up/down). Hope my finglish explanation gives the idea what I mean. Maybe the inch is too much, could do that all in ~1,5 inches.

Any other suggestions how to do it? So far the small rocks approach.. Also some insight about drybrush/brown wash is welcome. Or should I just settle for that.

I would still appreciate some insight how to proceed, but while I was wagging my dog in the forest I came to an idea.

Next I will gather some reindeer lichen and dry it in a mushroom/herb dryer to get it full dry and use it as shrubs on the field. At least I can do this without gluing anything to see the results. Reindeer lichen has it's color ready for my paint/board scheme so I can put "shrubs" here and there especially by the rocky slopes to minor the contrast between desert and rocks. Also I have a vision it could work like the small grass already on the board to give variety on the battlefield. Maybe some hair spray to finish it off and while gaming trying to avoid direct violence at the shrubs. I hope it'll sustain normal touches when handling, moving and storage.

Thought, insights? Less than a week until the release, got a message from the LGS that our double dark imperium box sets and indexes have arrived, but the LGS manager was very strict that not even some minor fiddling isn't possible even at the store :(

I honestly think you could probably just dry brush down the rock color into the sand where the edges meet like an inch to half an inch. just dont make it perfectly 1" boarder unless you want the uncanny valley