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Ok, so I've seen a few tutorials out there for making home made mat, and I've got the planets, stars and space down on a test sheet of poster board. However, how are folks doing the nebula effect? I can't seem to find anything out there that goes over that. By nebula effect, I mean the basic blue/purple swirly fog looking portions on the mat.

How are you doing the rest of the mat?

Pretty much like this http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-paint-an-amazing-space-scene/

Just applying it to two 3' x 4' sheets of MDF.

Okay.

I'm fairly new to this, but here is mine:



It has pretty light nebulas, one blue/purble and one red/orange/yellow. I just held the cans a moderate distance away (it is better to start off too far than too close) and do short bursts while moving the cans around. I was closer to the board with the blue can, so it is denser and has harsher edged IMO. I like the softness of the red/yellow area a lot better.

Another technique I have seen would be to do "cliffs/mountains". Here is a tutorial for that, starting at 3:30:




I have not tried this, but I think it would look really good for a nebula. I think you would have to have it at an edge though and I don't know how easy it would be to do on a bigger board instead of a picture.

That is really a quite awesome looking and simple to pull off method for a space board!!

 d-usa wrote:
Okay.

I'm fairly new to this, but here is mine:



It has pretty light nebulas, one blue/purble and one red/orange/yellow. I just held the cans a moderate distance away (it is better to start off too far than too close) and do short bursts while moving the cans around. I was closer to the board with the blue can, so it is denser and has harsher edged IMO. I like the softness of the red/yellow area a lot better.

Another technique I have seen would be to do "cliffs/mountains". Here is a tutorial for that, starting at 3:30:




I have not tried this, but I think it would look really good for a nebula. I think you would have to have it at an edge though and I don't know how easy it would be to do on a bigger board instead of a picture.

This is exactly what I was looking for, thanks for posting!!

I'm using one of the 3' x 4' cardboard presentation boards right now for playing, but in the next week or two I'm going to buy a sheet of 1/4" MDF and have it cut into two boards so I can put them together for epic on my warhammer table.