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Going to start working on gaming board finally. Original plan was 2'x2' modular tiles made out of finnfoam(insulation foam made by finnish company). However I don't have tools&ability to make exact squares and store I bought while cutting them didn't do sharp enough that they would make seamless(or fairly) regardless of how I turn them. And then having planned road layout realized that either there's so much 10cm wide roads(barely wide enough for predator. Feel smaller than that would be TOO small) that there's no room for buildings or the boards aren't that modular anyway!

So I think I modify my plan a bit. Rather than 6 2'x2' boards I will do them on 60cmx120cm(or so) boards. 2 sideway, another in 90 degree gives me 180cmx120cm board(about 6'x4') and less planks=less worry about cutting imperfections plus with less insinstance on modularity I don't need them to be capable of flipping on any possible combination. Lot less sculpted in features than original plan! Now I'm planning total of 6 such boards(doing 2 at a time). 3 will have canal running through(biggest sculpted feature and basically reason for using finnfoam to begin with. I want so depth as well as height) plus some smallish water filled craters for added fun. Nothing major. Roads etc I will make on separate pieces I can then lay over. 6 pieces so I can either make board with no canal, board with canal dividing it from north to south and board with canal dividing it from west to east so to speak. Enough for me.

However(sorry for long preamble) is suggestions on how to do the surface of the board? Simple option would be grey paint and done but I would like it to look bit better than that. Mix of PVA&sand followed by painting? Or would that start to look more like grey coloured sand desert? Or should I do(somehow) pattern to represent stones/etc on walking surface?

Help! I have never been particularly good with terrain making :( Always been too busy painting next model. Silly really to consider how much money and time I spend with armies but not to terrain. Time to change that!

If you are dedicating all six panels to urban terrain, a flat gray base wouldn't be a bad place to start.

Paint this on - a spray will melt your foam.

Roads and whatnot you can do three ways - lay on like you have planned now, carved down into the foam, or "left" on the foam by applying something like foamcore to be the base for your actual building blocks.

M.

I don't know this material you refer too, so I can't comment on if it can be spray painted, if so, over here in the UK you can get spays by a company named PlastiKote. They come in varying colours and different effects, if you can get the one simplify named stone it is grey paint full of flecs of black white and grey, gives a mild texture but looks very textured, just breaks up a big area stopping it from looking so flat.
Give it a Google, I would recommend

Spray paint melting is worry so was planning to use spare part to see if glue plus sand coat protects. If not it's time to pay for paint.

You can seal it with a layer of watered down PVC, but from experience spraypainting it afterwords is how you discover the spots you missed.

M.

 Infantryman wrote:
You can seal it with a layer of watered down PVC, but from experience spraypainting it afterwords is how you discover the spots you missed.

M.

That to! How baddly it melts? Small holes i could turn into artirelly hit damage

I am suggesting an alternate method, I used for my city board.
My board is one sheet 6x4 feet (it can be expanded) I put a layer of very fine sand, painted it all black and then a light grey dry brush. This base board becomes my roads, and of course remains a flat surface I can roll a mat out on for other terrain etc.
All of my buildings and terrain are on bases made from 1/4 inch board cut on a table saw. Most of them are 18 x 18" and contain one building, diorama, craters, etc. tHalf of them are built so that the building sits 2 inches from any edge, and these edges are then painted to be sidewalks. This makes most pieces a stand alone "block" in a city. The other half are built to be touching one edge of their base, so that they can be butted to another or the edge of the table itself. This allows larger blocks if wanted. We then arrange these "squares" into a city map at any angle we want, the spaces between the "squares" become the roads , plaza, you name it. We add constantly with smaller bases for statues, pools, more craters etc. I found this far easier than pre modeling a board system for my city that sticks together. This allows us to for example change road widths; narrow, we have the back streets of some hive city; wide, we have a central plaza of a megalopolis. We can also choose an angle. 'Squares placed along the long edge become a base of ruins for a players deployment, with generally a line of buildings between cut by roads. Or an open area between dressed up as a forum. Sometimes angling the streets corner to opposite corner makes a crazy advance with half your deployment partially behind a row of tenements, while the other half is on an open street, with firing angles lengthwise rather than long edge to long edge. the variety is great.

This page shows the city in an early stage (we have added many more squares)
https://edwardmystcreations.weebly.com/forlorn-campaign-battles.html

{oops, that first line using big text looks like im yelling, my apologies...not meant}

About same as i'm planning except i will have several smaller pieces for ease of transport, storage and nobody here sells 6'4' of anything that can have depth to it(ie deeper parts).

Personally since its simple insulation foam. id say

1) carve out squares rectangles and some things to simulate relief cuts in concrete or foundation zones.

2) emboss textures into the foam with something a cinder block or rocky texture for areas that look worn. and optionally put down sand and rocks if you want it more textures (personally i would not as its foam board its not going to last that long) you can also get texture rollers and it works on foam.

3) get cheap latex or acrylic paint and a roller for the majority of the work. block out different areas and add a bit of blue, green, or brown to simulate different concrete pours.

4) make a cheap wash with brown and black acrylic paint water and a drop dish soap and go nuts. add some different colors into too like blue or purple for staining effects.

5) seal it all with PVA glue and water.

Forgot to say I can't wait to see what you end up with! I've done terrain for many years at various levels of success, and it really feels good to lay down some great terrain, put your models out and think, "Yeah, that looks cool!" So share please!

tneva82 wrote:

 Infantryman wrote:
You can seal it with a layer of watered down PVC, but from experience spraypainting it afterwords is how you discover the spots you missed.

M.

That to! How baddly it melts? Small holes i could turn into artirelly hit damage

Less like shell damage, more like a visit from Papa Nurgle.

M.

 Infantryman wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

 Infantryman wrote:
You can seal it with a layer of watered down PVC, but from experience spraypainting it afterwords is how you discover the spots you missed.

M.

That to! How baddly it melts? Small holes i could turn into artirelly hit damage

Less like shell damage, more like a visit from Papa Nurgle.

M.

Well plan was to carve up those into proper holes.

Anyway ran into yet another issue. Lol. I had bought 5cm deep finnfoam(insulation foam). Plan was to have this big canal with big bridge or two(Enough for tanks) and smaller infantry sized bridges to provide access. Maybe watched too many times "bridge too far" Well also plan was to make boards without one so I can have games without one.

This one isn't problem. Problem came when I thought I would add small footpath on the bottom next to the water(done by woodland scenic's pourable water thingie). I thought that could look cool and add tactical element as one could use it to sneak infantry across board stealthy. Yey!

Except after cutting things around realized the 5cm is too shallow! Even with just 7mm height for the walking path(meaning the water needs to be poured THIN) the ground level is so close that the marine's helmet is easily spottable...Urgh.

Think I would need like double the depth to ensure proper LOS blocking(especially if I were to play 8th ed RAW here)...

10cm board could be rather hard to carve into anything resembling straight wall...

So what to do? Easy option would be to dump the whole walking path idea and just have water filled canal there. Harder(and more expensive. I have already spent 40e for finnfoam due to screw ups and 10cm deep one costs 26e per sheet and I need 2 minimum for 6'x4', 3 for planned amount! ARGH!) option would be to get deeper finnfoam and proceed as planned.

Sigh. Never easy. Measure first, cut then might have been good enough. I thought 5cm would be sufficient depth but guess no.

Also after having measured, planned and realized shop's cut had resulted the 60cmx60cm boards as...Not useful and abandoning those for bigger boards(less sides to cut and since I would be no longer having sculpted roads less need for flipping around anyway) of course the hard board(whatever that is really called in english) I had got as bottom(mostly for the canal!) is now not appropriate. Lol. The canal needs to be over such board fully but nope no can do especially on this size. So I need to buy new set of these. Lol. Well that's just 9e and the old ones I can cut into bases for ruins etc I think so not wasted money. But measure first indeed. Had I first checked can I use the 60cm60cm boards I would have known to buy hardboard later...Speed kills.

Have a look at some of my boards. The city side is foam. The buildings have foam foundations. It can be sprayed. But you have to hold the can farther away than normal. About 12 inches. This allows the propellant to evaporate. This is hat eats the foam. Try it.