5/9/13: Tutorial: Painting your Realms of Battleboard Cheaply and Quickly!

Hey guys!

So after getting that Realms of Battleboard finished so quickly, and the positive response off the Facebook page, I figured I'd through up a little tutorial on how I got the table finished so quick. For those of you who weren't following the page, I got the board completed in just about five hours, off and on, on Saturday and Tuesday. Being the second complete board I've done, I knew what I was getting into and how to really rock the board out. Lets get started, shall we?

MATERIALS

Army Painter Fur Brown Spray

Black Spray Paint (Krylon, Citadel, whatever works)

Grey Spray Paing (I used Ace Auto Primer, its a mid grey-tone)

Brown Latex Paint (Lighter than the Fur Brown)

Several Large Brushes (For Paint and White Glue

PVA Glue (Elmer's Glue

Flock (A large bag is preferred, I ended up using 4 containers of the GW Flock)

Wal-Mart White Paint

Pallid Wych Flesh

Stormvermin Fur

PREPARING THE BOARD

The Realms of Battleboard has no release agent or anything on them, so you don't have to worry about washing them. Your first step is to spray the edges of the board with the Black Spray Paint. Don't worry about getting it on the board, we'll take care of it when we start painting.

1) Spray the Board with the Fur Brown Spray, keeping the stone and hill areas grey.

2) Spray the rocky areas and the hills with the Grey Spray Paint. Focus on the rocks, but you can spray a little bit around it to blend the rocks into the board.

3) Overbrush the board with the Brown Latex Paint. The texture on the board will do all the work for you, just don't streak the board. 

4) Overbrush the stone areas with the white paint. Again, don't streak it, just lightly brush it on and let the texture do the work.

By now, your board should look like this:

FLOCK THIS!

Its time to lay down some flock! Get your PVA Glue and your flock! Make sure you've got a surface covering, like an old tablecloth or a large poster, to collect the run-off.

1) Apply Watered down White Glue to the brown areas. Its up to you how much you cover, I prefer to have some of the base brown showing.

2) Carefully, begin laying down the flock onto the glue-covered areas.

3) Let it sit, then gently turn the board sideways and knock the flock off onto your collecting area. Put the excess flock back into the container.

4) Rinse and Repeat! Your Board will look nearly finished now!

You're not done yet!!

WOULD YOU LIKE SKULLS WITH YOUR SKULLS?

I understand all of GW's universes are wartorn, but do we need all these skulls? Lets start painting them!

1) Coat the skull areas with Stormvermin Fur.

2) Mix the Stormvermin Fur and the Pallid Wych Flesh, and overbrush it onto the skulls.

3) Lastly, drybrush Pallid Wych Flesh onto the skulls. They're a prominent part of the board, but keeping them in the same tones as the rocks makes it a little more shocking when people figure out there's a bazillion skulls on the board.

4) You're not done yet! There's bones all over the boards. Look on the hills, in the flat rocky boards, and other places. These just need a quick coat of Pallid Wych Flesh and they're done.

FINAL STEPS

At this point, you're done. You can matte varnish the board and be done. But there's a couple other things you can do. I went back through the dark grass, applied PVA again, and applied light grass. It just adds an extra variation and effect to it. While you're at it, line up the boards and decide if you need to apply any more flock. Clean up the black edges, any areas the black is still showing through on the board itself, and anything else you missed. Otherwise, NOW you're done!

I hope this helps everything trying to get a Realms of Battleboard done! It appears daunting, but tackling it in stages makes getting this project done extremely quickly!

Alrighty guys, if you have any other questions, drop me an email or hit us up on Facebook. Happy Painting!

Granesh