Showing posts with label Terrain. Show all posts

And here is the final or semi-final post about the gaming board! This time painting commences, a disaster strikes and the day is saved! Sounds exciting, almost as though it wasn't just piece of board and a brush!


But to the point, the final stage of getting the gaming board done was to, of course, paint it. So I went to a hardware store and bought two pots of paint. One as a basecoat would be dark brown and had to be made on the spot (mixed specifically to what I chose). The other was ready-made, a colour resembling Bleached Bone. All with the purpose of the board matching the basing of the 42nd.


Perhaps it wasn't the best idea, but let's not rush the facts.


Here's the brown, it actually darkened quite a bit after drying, which I consider a good thing.


And the painting begun. After approximately half of table done I looked into the paint pot... and began to worry.


And I was right. I ran out of paint, when there was just a corner left. Luckily though, the remains in the pot could have been watered down and the paitning could continue. If you look here and the far right corner, you can see the paint being slightly lighter. It actually did darken to the same colour after drying out, I was quite concerned with that! Unfortunately tehre wasn't enough paint to get the edges... I might have to pick up another pot later, it will come in handy for terran as well, so that the hills and whatnot can match in colour.

In hindsight, I could've probably watered down the entire pot. Would make for easier paitning and perhaps it wouldn't obscure the fine sand, which it did, even though I did my best to prevent it.


And now the time for highlight, here's the inconspiciously looking pot of the "Bleached Bone".


Disaster strikes! The attempt to drybursh is wasted and goes totally wrong. Just look at that.


I'm not sure I can describe what I felt then. Definitely not on the blog, I mean, there might be children reading. Only later I came to conclusion the culprit was wet brush. Be careful with that!
Luckily later on I manage to get the drybrushing done right... mostly.. Excludng the attempt with a painting roll. Don't do that! Here's a shot of the board with the "drybrushing" done. I sure can't leave it like that, huh?

Luckily I've had means to cover for those mistakes to some extent. Since the idea was to get a flat board with terrain layn on it, I couldn't really cover it up with hills, which I surely would. But even before I planned ot using something else - static grass!

Using the same grass that I utilise on my bases I managed to cover up most of these areas in patches of not-really-green-and-not-lush grasslands. Phew! Looks quite good, though it surely could've been way better. I was actualyl surprised that the packed I've used for entire army so far still was enough to cover such vast areas AND have a lot left, meaning I could make another 100 guardsmen without buying another. Nice!


And here's the almost finished board, with some models on it for demonstration purposes. I think you can see that the bases of the models match it quite well.


I said almost finished as there's still a few things to do, like painting the crevises and perhaps adding more details there... I have some ideas lying in my bits box. Also the edges still could use painting as well. And then... terrain! Lots of terrain is to be made! Some time at the end of this year we'll probably buy the CoD Imperial Sector and make the rest ourselves. Got a few hills here that would need detailing and painting, great looking trees my cousin made for a wood and there's also a lot of styrofoam left for more! I'll surely keep on posting as the terrain progresses and give you more shots as it develops. Also expect a battle report played on that table some time in the near future, though I'll have to smack my cousin to actually paint more of his models and stop using Grey Knights as Boyz and =I= Stormtroopers as Lootas!

I'll gladly hear your opinions, suggestions and hints on the board and future terrain!

Oooh and one more thing. The squad on the left on the last shot? It's the 302nd Veteran Squad fully finished. Expect a post within the next 24 hours. And now back to the flying thingy...


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And the project of the gaming table continues. Here's a recap of yesterday's progress. The sanding is completed and some steps in linking the quarters are made. After this the table is more or less ready to play - but that doesn't mean it's finished!

Here's a shot of all four quarters with sand on them.


But all the parts are still separate and there's now way to link them into something stable. Of course you can lay them next to each other, but it would be better if some sort of linking was possible to strengthen the construction and prevent accidents with onepart slipping and falling down with whatever it was on it..

This little thing should help out...




Of course, hinges cannot link all the parts together, it's physically impossible. But as one edge is made with the L-shapes connecting it goes together quite nicely. Thus the quarters will be put together by the longer edges using these hinges.

The quarters have to be put together as close as they're supposed to be to make exact measures as to where to put the hinges. Also if you'll be doing something like that remember the hinges have to be parallely to the edges of the board, if they're slightly off something might break!



A problem arises however. The board is made of thin plywood and styrofoam. As such it is impossible to actually use screws to attach it. At least not regular screws. What's needed are screws with nuts, but that needs access from both sides of the plywood. And thus, knife goes into play again.


Once the hole is made it's easy to attach the hinge to one side.

I'm also considering doing something to that "maintenance hole", possible just sinking it all in PVA glue.

The proble was attaching it to the other half later. It sure took an agility of an eldar to hold it all together straight while attempting to get that silly screw through the nut evenly! But after much cursing and taking strange positions to hold t in place with legs the work is done!

This is how the quarters are connected, making the table composed of two halves now.



And here is the entire board as it is now.

The picture doesn't show slight uneven areas. The bottom right quarter as you look at it now has deformed slightly. The issue however can be fixed. I'll have to put something heavy on it and leave it for all day and it should go back to shape. There are also slight interspaces between the quarters, but it cannot really be avoided. I'll try to aybe fix them up later with sand and such. Though even the GW board seems to have the borders of its tiles visible!

Anyway, what remains to do is pretty much only painting. I'll probably do that in the afternoon today, if it won't be too hot and the sun won't be too annoying.

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Another day brightens outside and another day of work begins, but first a recap of yesterdays progress!


The first thing was to sculpt some terrain into the board itself, not too much but to make it appear a bit better than just empty flat surface. The styrofoam isn't that easy to carve in and sculpt, though the extruded one has it way better than the regular one. In the comments under the last post David warned me about carving into it, thanks! Too bad I read that comment after I actually started to do it.. In the end however nothing wrong happened, aside from me getting my finger cut which is annoying me as I type now, groan , and the crevasses (how do you spell that..) look good. The most important thing to remember is that you have a really sharp knife. The alternative is to have a very hot knife. Both of these things make styrofoam cutting really easy. Here's a shot of the table as it looked after the sculpting.


And the projects continues


Here are some closeup shots of the terrain.




Once that was done it was time for next step - sanding. Things needed at this stage are as follows:

Woodworking glue, I prefer it to PVA glue when gluing sand, simply because it's easier to apply and much thinner. It's also way easier to clean off. The other things include a brush. That piece of cardboard was there to act as a brush as well, since the brush was actually dirty with glue, but it ended up working fine, so the cardboard wasn't used at all.
Price: 13 zł = £2,68 (for the glue)


Obviously to apply sand to the table you will need sand itself! My estimations say about 4 medium-sized jars of sand should be enough for the entire surface.

There was a problem with the sand however. It isn't modelling sand, it's construction sand and as such its mixed with a lot of small rocks and similar and too large grains. A riddle was neccessary but there was none about (other than a kitchen one and that was out of question). But I found a way around it with a jar, a screw and a hammer!

Once the tools were prepped the work could begin. Sand is applied to the table just as it is to bases of the minis. Drop the glue onto the surface and then brush it around making an even coa that covers the area completely. It was actually quite hard not to leave brush marks but I am unsure wether its a fault of the brush or the glue being too thick. Woodworking glue can be thinned down by water, you may try that, but don't add too much of it and it takes a lot of mixing as well. On the other hand those brush marks might work as terrain,a fter all land isn't totally flat, right? Here's the surface covered with glue:


Then I applied the sand. Using the jar was just like shaking a huge salt cellar. It was actually quite fun. It also allowed to dose the sand somewhat and minimised the losses, not a bad thing.

Remember you don' want to cover the entire table with glue at once. Before you're done and start applying sand the starting area might dry out a little, especially if you're doing that outdoors in warm weather. As such it is better to work gradually, apply the glue, the sand, then brush the glue onto next area and so on.
Here a table quarter with the sanding completed:


I managed to sand one more quarter and then the glue bottle ran out. Thing to remember, the 4'x6' area needs to big glue bottles to cover it entirely. As such, before I start working today again, I'll need to go pick up more glue. Once I get it though, I should be able to finish sanding today and maybe even start painting!




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There's lots and lots of updates coming! The conclusion of the IHRH series, some updates on a side projects and many more, but also this little building log, detailing my construction of a gaming table for use by me and my cousin mostly. Expect quite a few pictures and tips that I will learn durin the process.

It's actually not the first gaming table I'm making. We used to have one before, made a bit differently out of (I am unsure I'm using the right word, but that's what the dictionary is pointing me at) a harl board. It was cut to a proper size, it had sand glued on it and painted and it looked like this:


Uh yea, it is ugly. Mostly because the paint we used wasn't really what we wanted and in the case of the yellow one, we simply ran out of it and haven't bought more since. It had a lot of other isses though. It was huge, meaning storing it anywhere was a big problem. It was also pretty damn heavy and carrying it around was annoying at the least. We were thinking of cutting it in half and adding hinges, but that wouldn't really reduce the weight. After some consideration I decided just to scrap the entire idea and make a new one, using different, lighter materials. Also make it modular, just like the GW's Realm of Battle board.
Speaking of which, I was also considering purchasing one. I heard a lot of good of it and how it's worth the money and everything. Still, it might be worth the money, but I just don't have that money. With its price being £146.80 and the polish price tag of 649 zł (Which with the current exchange rates is actually cheaper..) it's just a tad too much for me to handle, at least now. Sure, my cousin could pay half of it, but he was reluctant to do so and so was I. In the end I decided to plan out making everything on our own. Guess what? All the materials cost us aproximately 100 zł, being roughly £20. Fun, huh? I'll actually post a price breakdown at the very end and now, on to the beginning of the work!


First a list of materials used for the table itself with the tools used.

First, a 4'x6' plywood board, 3mm thickness. A first problem appeared here, as I ordered a board cut in such dimensions, in centimetres being roughly 122x183. To be on the safe side I ordered 125x190. Guess what I got? 121.5x190. Yep, smaller than 48". Luckily I got that problem fixed
Cost: approx. 26 zł = £5,35


4 styrofoam (Wikipedia whispers its called: Extruded polystyrene foam) boards, being slightly over 2 meters square. The edfes of it are L-shaped to allow placing one on another, and that edge helped me to offset the missing 0,5 centimeter.
Cost: 36,78 zł = £7,57


Finally the tools: a modelling knife and a bottle of PVA glue. The one show here is actually too big, half of it would probably suffice.
Cost: approx. 13 zł = £2,68 (for the glue, I'm sure you have a knife!)


The process of production was actually quite simple. Basically, glue the styrofoam to the plywood. I decided to use the L-shape to my advantage, by both making it stick out from the longer table edge adding to the incomplete 4' (Making it slightly over that, but that's not a problem!) and helping the quarters come together (though due to the size of the boards it was only possible on one edge). I put the styrofoam on the garage floor, covered it with glue and put the plywood on it. As you can see I put some firewood on it to weight the plywood down so that it connects better. Later on I also used a smaller piece of mentioned before harl board for that.


Here you have a shot of a single quarter finished. It might look slightly uneven, the gap between two styrofoam boards is visible, but it will all go away once I glue the sand onto it and actually sculpt some terrain in it.


The same piece as seen from the edge, being an intersection of the table.


And a shot taken the next day after the glue has totally dried out of the entire table as it is now:

Next step is to sculpt some terrain into it, like slight crevises (I bet I mispelled that), craters and such, then to glue the sand onto it. It will probably increase the weight of the entire thing quite a bit, but without it there won't be any texture to the table and it will horribly.

And that's it for today. Keep an eye out for, as I mentioned at the beginning, there's a lot of stuff coming up!


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