Sunday, September 13, 2015

Making Terrain Boards Part 5: Dirt and Stone


Yet another in my ongoing terrain board construction series. In this session I add some dirt and stone and the terrain boards begin to take on something resembling their final state. Join me after the jump for the details.


If you want to check out any other steps in the process, see them here:
I'd finished up the major terrain features of the boards and got to tackle the fined details of surface dirt, stones and pathways. I used spackle to coat and smooth any outstanding remaining pink foam. I roughed in some pathways and a "town center", and added small divots and wheel tracks to make them well traveled.



I gave areas outside of the roadways a coat of 50:50 water/white glue mix and spread fine sand over them. Once the glue dried I removed the excess sand and used the palm of my hand and sand paper to take out any larger pebbles so all that was left was a find grit coat of sand.

I painted the entire surface with some Home Depot paint samples to seal the sand, and spray painted the plastic edging with black.




I used a variety of grays, browns, and sand colors to drybrush the surface of the terrain boards. The river was left a suitably muddy brown, while the paths were lightened to a lighter, drier sandy tan.



Finally I gave the exposed rock work a mix of gray and white drybrush to pick out the stoney details.


I'm pretty pleased with the way the boards are turning out. If only I had opted for creating a desert I'd be done, but I'm going to push on and incorporate vegetation to model a drizzly, cool northern European terrain. Now, I just need to figure out how to flock something so big!


12 comments:

  1. This terrain board looks terrific! What great ground to fight over.

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    1. Thanks Jonathan! I'm looking forward to finishing it and pushing some lead on it :)

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  2. Amazing stuff, wish I had the space to host a nice table like that.

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    1. Having a suitable gaming space was #1 with a bullet when we were searching for our house :)

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  3. What a fantastic looking board! Looking forward to seeing how it looks with grass (and heather?).

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    1. Me too! I hope I can pull off some proper highland terrain brimming with heather of course.

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  4. A great looking terrain board.

    Tony

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  5. That looks awesome! If I were you I'd probably stop there and add some water to the river -- my own boards look similar to what you've got now, as I use them for arid 19th Century Colonial gaming, mostly in Afghanistan. But I'll be excited to see what you do to bring them into the temperate zone with grass and other vegetation. Great job and thanks for posting your work for the rest of us to see!

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    1. I'm tempted to leave them as is, but I have a collection of Vikings, Normans, and Medieval figures that need some proper ground to fight over. I'm going to press on, but I have ideas for some desert themed terrain boards for the future!

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  6. Superb! Wish I had the skills, the tools and the space!

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  7. Would have to that 10 out 10. A Biblical gamers dream.

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