First off, sorry for the delay in posts the last week and a half! My girlfriend was in town for a chunk of it, and the painting mojo was more assembly mojo, and there just wasn't enough to chronicle into a blogpost! Lots of waiting on pieces to come in though, which is always super annoying!
My big project, the last two weeks or so, is a new battleboard for my FLGS that I work at. I'd seen a really nice ocean-themed board on White Dwarf Daily back in December, and decided I would try to make one of my own.
I had a couple of key things I had to meet, though. I opted for less external details to make it less fragile. The boards had to match up with our existing Battleboard and add-on pieces to allow for bigger tables. And lastly, I wanted the hill water sections to be able to link up to make a river, as well as a lake and an ocean. With that in mind, I dove in!
The two flat pieces had sand glued down around the skull pits to make little islands or sandbars. The hill pieces had sand applied where the hill met the flat piece to create a beachfront. I let these dry. When I do my battleboard, I spray the edges Black, then start on the top. The hills and islands were sprayed with Army Painter's Fur Brown, while the rocky areas were sprayed with a grey primer. The Water was sprayed with Macragge Blue.
Ah, a completed tile! After the sprays dried, I broke out the GW Scenery Painting kit and got to work! The Brown areas were overbrushed with the Ochre color (old school Snakebite Leather), while the hills were brushed with a dusting of white to bring out details and highlights. as was the water. The beaches were dusted on the shoreline with white to simulate the foam created by waves; they were then dusted with a Bleached Bone spray, then drybrushed with white.
The shark in the water was done with a quick-made stencil sprayed black.
Here you can see the board as it sits now! The water was gloss varnished, and still needs another coat or two to really get the watery sheen I want! There's still some minor tonal distinctions on the rocks I need to fix up, and I want to add some special flock to some of the shorelines to look like moss and gunk floating on the water. May add some little details like treasure chests and crabs to the beach, but we'll see!
Here's a shot of the large sandbar pieces. I really like the rock in the middle, it just felt perfect for an island. Gotta hit the skulls, and will probably add some more detail of my own to really make this area pop. You can see the foam-effect I was trying for nicely in this picture and the next!
The beach looks calm....too calm...
Ah yes! The rocks on the hills and beach are large woodchips I grabbed from outside my apartment. I stuck them in the oven on low to dry them out and get rid of any gribblies living in them. They're glued down with woodglue, cemented with the additional sand, then overbrushed like the rest of the rocks.
Alrighty guys! I should have more pictures of this board as I wrap it up over the next couple of weeks, so stay tuned for that, it should be pretty fun! Like I said, I've been waiting on pieces to arrive, so work on the Tau assembly commission has been pretty slow as a result. The Necrons are almost entirely assembled, and will start painting tonight! Got some stuff to wrap up for Genghis Con as well, so you know its gonna be a busy couple of weeks for me!
Speaking of busy, I won't be getting any painting done on February 2nd! Why you ask? Well...
Our Denver Broncos are in the Super Bowl! Lets go Denver!
Granesh
Love the sharks. Very good adaptation of the Battle Boards. Just to be a downer, it's too bad the edges don't line up so well on some of the tiles. How high would you have to raise the water level to get rid of this problem.
ReplyDeleteHey Meleck, thanks! You're right, its definitely annoying that the boards don't line up great on some of them, it's just a reality on a project like this. The beaches just ended up going too far out to the end, so there's a strange straight line on em. The water is just gloss varnish and paint, raising it via clear resin would prove too costly for the type of project it is. That being said, I've still got a little edging with the white spray to bring it all together! I hope I answered your question!
ReplyDeleteGranesh