Confessions of a terrain board virgin

[Mason]

That should pick up the drybrushing very well.
 

[OSHIROmodels]

Looks like it will do the job nicely 

For the colouring in, don't be afraid to use different tones and shades of your chosen colour  on the same board. You can always knock it back again if you feel it's too much.

cheers

James

[Charlie_]

Nice texture!

[Vanvlak]

Looking good. Looking forward to the next steps.

[Jeff965]

First coat of five levels of painting, this coat covers the dark brown of the "gloop" completley which makes me wonder why I didn't paint it this colour initially. Ah well live and learn.
Not much of this colour will be visible in the final finish, just the very deepest levels

Looks like it will do the job nicely 

For the colouring in, don't be afraid to use different tones and shades of your chosen colour  on the same board. You can always knock it back again if you feel it's too much.

cheers

James

Five levels should do it James, the next coat will be painted on but leaving some of this colour grinning through. The three levels after that will all be different levels of dry-brushing.

[OSHIROmodels]

Sounds good to me 

cheers

James

[Jeff965]

Ok next stage has been done I'll put a progress photo up when it's dry tomorrow. The next stage now is the dry brushing stage, I'm used to dry brushing on small areas of a figure but I've never done an area as large as a 2'x2' board.
What size brush would you all recommend? And are there any hints and tips out there regarding dry brushing, any pitfalls I should be aware of?

Comments would be appreciated.

[OSHIROmodels]

000 W&N should do you fine...


















 

Make sure it's a big brush and that the bristles are soft ad that you take off more paint than you think. There's nothing worse than having a large board and seeing the brush strokes  

There are some good decorators brushes and something around an inch and a hal to two inches should do. Don't be afraid to spend a bit on one as it will pay off in the long run.

cheers

James

[Jeff965]

Second third fourth and fifth painting stages, flocking next.
What do you think?

[Mason]

That looks great to me, mate.
Well worth the multiple layers, which is the right way to get a top result with drybrushing.
 

Once you have done all of the boards, I would suggest a final layer of a really light shade of drybrushing done all at the same time to help unify them as a whole, as there may be a little bit of difference in colour doing them one at a time.
 

[OSHIROmodels]

Very good 

How about a few watered down ink washes in a few places. Nothing too regular of course.

cheers

James

[Captain Blood]

Hard to tell from the pics, Jeff, but looks pretty good from here

[Jeff965]

Thanks Paul I'll remember that if and when I get to that stage .
James will the washes not darken it all back down again?
Couple more photos Richard, tbh I'm not sure about the gloop, I may have a look at pva with sand on top then paint it all as I think the sand granules will be more prominent that way.

[Vagabond]

I think thats looking good, I don't think you said what terrain type you were aiming for originally but it looks great for U.S. south west - dry country, which is what I am looking for in the near future.

Do you mind me asking what colours you used, I am hopless with colour matching.

Bye the way I'm impressed that you did all that with a '000' brush as Jim suggested.

If you do put a wash on will you show a pic as I am curious to see how it comes out.

[Captain Blood]

Jeff - Yes, as discussed earlier in the thread, you'll get a slightly finer surface texture by sprinkling sand and sealing with thinned PVA over the top.
I never bother, because mostly in the case of my various boards, I cover a lot of the bare 'earth' up with flock etc anyway.
Also, I've always used a decorators' spray gun and compressor to paint my boards - necessitating many thin coats of paint, which tends to preserve the surface texture rather than clogging it.
In the same way, you'd need to use fairly coarse sand to get the additional surface texture - otherwise, by the time you've coated and drybrushed it with emulsion, all the texture gets concealed by the thick paint anyway.
It's going to be interesting when I get to do my planned desert terrain boards, which will largely be bare sand with little vegetation.
I'll still use gloop as a base, but will need to experiment with various 'top dressings' to get the right sandy effect...

A wash would certainly be worth a try. If you use a very thin wash of a darker colour - I mean, like 95% water with just a tiny bit of paint in it - it will run into the recesses and show up a bit more of the texture, but won't appreciably darken the boards overall. You can repeat this treatment until it gives you something you're happy with. The thing with washes is to make them really super thin and build them up to achieve the depth required. But I guess it all depends on the colour terrain you're after...  

Anyway, the boards look good - it's all a learning process, eh? (And it's better than a fecking upturned Subbuteo cloth! )