Battle board scratch build

[AlexanderTheOk]

I’ve never made any large scenic items for wargaming. Wanting to up my  repertoire I decided to start with a 2x2 board made out of insulation foam and backed with plywood. This will be used as a general dry/grassy battlefield that can handle 15mm historicals and 6mm sci fi. This will be my build thread. Feel free to give me advice! I’m not super happy with the streaks so if anyone has ideas let me know…

My “recipe”:
1. Glued plywood backing
2. Applied mod podge matte to the board and let it dry overnight
3. PVA + sand mixture
4. Base coat
5. Mod podge + sand to help fill in areas that didn’t stick and seal the sand
6. Applied paint and dry brushing
7. Applied fine flock mixture
8. Sprayed on watered down mod podge matte to seal
6. Base coat

[AlexanderTheOk]

Testing out how my “old school” hills look. Roughly .5 inch foam cut to size with a hot wire cutter and then sealed/painted/drybrushed. I used a lighter green mixture for the flock on these for contrast.

[traveller]

I think it looks good! I had the same problems with streaks but I guess it is just down to brushing smaller areas in different directions rather than long strokes. I use a dark brown basecoat and then 3 layers or drybrushing with yellowish and beige tones. I also used plywood in the early days but found it to be too heavy. Using XPS foam (which is very sturdy) requires no backing at all, or only a thin 3 mm mdf sheet. I find using sand a bit messy and use tissue/toilet paper on pva which gives a nice structure. It looks like this:



I also got a lot of help from this youtube channel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZN16RxVNrvc

Looking forward to see your continued progress!

[FifteensAway]

Board looks good.  Streaks?  Ignore them.  Others will when the focus is on the game on the board.

Those hills, maybe a dry brush on the flocking to better blend but otherwise look good.

Now, you just need at least five more boards!

[AlexanderTheOk]

Thanks and you’re right! Modular rivers are next. I made some good progress but I’m not super happy with how high the river banks are. I’m considering redoing them but let me know your thoughts.

[FifteensAway]

On the rivers, the banks are okay - but I would dry brush them to better blend them with the other terrain - at least the outer sides, maybe less so on the inner sides to get a bit of the mud look. 

The river surface, for my tastes, is WAY too blue, though you did good by varying depth colors.  Rivers tend to be more green than blue. 

If you have easy access to acrylic gloss medium, get some - the higher the gloss the better.  Mix a little green acrylic paint (not grass green and Definitely not bright green!) with the gloss and add it as a top layer, then a layer with a lighter muddy brown, and then another layer with more green in the gloss mix.  Keep the mixes very opaque so lower layers still show through - and let them dry between coats or you will lose the desired effect.

And if the mood strikes, in the top couple of layers sparingly add some bits of glitter to give the river a bit of a sparkle. 

As always, best to have a test piece to work on to make sure you like the results before you are fully committed. 

One of the nice features of acrylic gloss medium is it is easy to clean and, if really needed, easy to add a top layer of plain gloss medium.

[Digits]

River banks tend to be lush with vegetation.     The high banks could be more green perhaps, that would look more natural and give a reason for being high?

[AlexanderTheOk]

Thanks for the feedback. I'm going to give these another try this week.