ShinyRhino's inaugural venture into table/terrain making...

[ShinyRhino]

(This content is duplicated in my blog, though I'm not sure anyone reads that)...

 

 

Well, I got a bit of energy up over the weekend, and started the construction of my Red Planet game table.

I stopped by Home Depot, and grabbed 48 feet of 1"x2" poplar. Had one of their employees cut the 12' lengths in half for me, so I had 8 6' lengths. Grabbed a cheap miter box/saw combo, and off I went.

 

The first task was cutting all the poplar into the appropriate sizes for making my frames. Each frame needed two 4' beams for the long edges, and four 22.5" beams for the short edges and crossbeams. I'd originally planned for the crossbeams to be 23", but apparently .75" is the same as 1" in lumber world. Go figure.

The cutting was a serious pain in the backside to do with a plastic miter box and a hand saw. The saw likes to bind in the cut. After a lot of work, I had all the required sections I needed.

 

Next step was to fasten a short beam to the end of each long beam. I drilled pilot holes and countersinks, and used a pair of drywall screws for each joint. Owning two power drills helped a lot with the speed of this, since I could keep both bits in the drills, and only swap out one when I needed to drive screws into the pilot holes.

After each long beam had a short one on it, I then attached the two L-shapes into one box frame using the same methods. Then I slipped a pair of crossrails into each frame and attached with more drywall screws.

 

http://i191.photobucket.com/albums/z43/goalie20/Warhammer%2040K/Tables%20WIP/tablewipframes.jpg

 

These are just two of the frames, the third wasn't yet assembled when I took the pic. I was/am very proud of myself for getting clean cuts and even angles. These were surprisingly strong, so I'm not bothering with corner brackets or blocks.

 

The next day I stopped by Home Depot again, and grabbed the hardboard for the top. It's "eucaboard", which is made from pressed eucalyptus fibers, which are sustainable. An eco-friendly wargaming board! lol.

I also bought a box of paneling nails, after deciding that screws would be too hard to countersink in 1/8" hardboard. I had someone at the store cut the 4'x8' panel into three 2'x4' panels, and one just-shy of proper width (because of the wood lost to the width of the saw blade).

Arriving home, I ran a bead of wood glue along the top of each frame, and laid the panels on top. I then tacked it down using a fistful of the paneling nails. This only made the whole construction even stronger! I broughtone upstairs to show off to the wife, and to check if they laid 100% flat on the table. They did! Woot!

This pic shows both top and underside views...

 

http://i191.photobucket.com/albums/z43/goalie20/Warhammer%2040K/Tables%20WIP/tablewiptops.jpg

 

Another little gem I picked up at the Home Depot was a small box of sand texture additive. It's basically crystallized silica. You mix it slowly with a quart of paint, and roll on. I used a couple nearly-empty cans of old latex wall paint that the previous owners of our house had left behind when they moved out. The result was a very sandy, very purple paint. I slopped on a bunch of the stuff right onto the boards, and spread it out with a roller. Pouring it into a roller pan was useless. You lose all the texture in the ribs and valleys of the roller pan.

The first coat looked ok, so I left it for a couple hours to dry. Wehrn I came back right before bed, the first coat was dry, so I poured more of the texture paint on any bald areas, and spread it out again. Cleaned up my work area, and left the baords to dry overnight.

 

I'll be stopping at the craft shop on the way home for a couple pots of craft paint, so I can cover the purple with a red/brown oxide scheme. Not sure exactly what color I want to highlight the sand bumps with, though. Maybe a tan, or a red/tan mix?

[averykess]

The cutting was a serious pain in the backside to do with a plastic miter box and a hand saw. The saw likes to bind in the cut. After a lot of work, I had all the required sections I needed.

 

clamp the piece of wood into the miter box on both sides of the cut and you should have no trouble with the saw binding

[ShinyRhino]

The cutting was a serious pain in the backside to do with a plastic miter box and a hand saw. The saw likes to bind in the cut. After a lot of work, I had all the required sections I needed.

 

clamp the piece of wood into the miter box on both sides of the cut and you should have no trouble with the saw binding

 

Indeed. I should have bought a clamping miter box, but went for the $8 version instead of the $16 version. That'll teach me!

[livEvil]

From doing terrain for a pretty long time I've found that the most durable (and decent looking) choice for texture is that granite fleck spray paint. Usually comes in two parts and you spray it on to make "rock texture". Looks like crap until you paint over it. Hit it with a quick contrasting dry brush and it'll look, as they say, ace.

 

EDIT++

 

In the spirit of full disclosure I should point out that this is, in fact, not an idea original to me. One of the other guys in the area gaming group (who is much better at terrain than I) developed this technique. I have no desire to claim his brilliance. He has tried pretty much everything including Rhino liner (truck bed liner) and swears that this is the cheapest and best looking option.

[Master Toddius]

You'll also enjoy having your knuckles rubbed raw and your transparent dice and flying bases become frosted :confused:

[commander alexander]

Rustoleum's (spelling) black/grey stone spray is actually not that rough and would not scratch things too badly, just to throw that out there. :)

[Brother Mordeus]

Nice table!!! Love the scenery!!! Lol, good start mate.

[Capt. Lysander]

Nice! Will be looking forward to further progress.

[verpine]

Your stuff is always sweet. looking forward to more.

[ShinyRhino]

Thanks for the feedback, all.

 

I did look at the stone texture spraypaints, but felt the sand mix was a cheaper, and more thrifty, option. It allowed me to both use materials I already had laying around gathering dust, and do so on the cheap. :)

It's definitely an option for next time.

 

As for progress, I'm done the first coat of red on the board. I had snapped some shots of the board with just the texture paint on it, but they didn't come out too well. Must have been the purple.

So, here are two shots of one of the sections with the red paint on them...

 

http://i191.photobucket.com/albums/z43/goalie20/Warhammer%2040K/Tables%20WIP/tablewipbasepaint.jpg

 

http://i191.photobucket.com/albums/z43/goalie20/Warhammer%2040K/Tables%20WIP/tablewipbasepaint2.jpg

 

 

It does look a little...pink. I used a red oxide craft paint, applied liberally with a 2.5" house paint brush. Went on fast and easy, though I did have to make sure I wet the brush a lot, so the paint didn't go on too thick. First coat on all three sections took a grand total of 15 minutes. Second coat took 20. Not too shabby.

The next step is to use a synthetic seas sponge to sponge on some brighter red paint all over the board. The one thing I'm torn on is whether this will make it too bright to look like a Mars-scape. I may mix some black with my base color after that, and sponge it on more sparingly to create a mottled look.

I have a tan color that Iplan to use for the drybrushing of the sand particles. I figure it'll give a nice, final highlight to the board.

 

What do you guys think? Is this color plan going to look good, or not?

[Capt. Lysander]

Ah. I quite like the colours. Based on the photograph, it looks quite good- but it depends on the kind of environment you're trying to set.

[ShinyRhino]

Ah. I quite like the colours. Based on the photograph, it looks quite good- but it depends on the kind of environment you're trying to set.

 

Evetually, it'll be a "Red Planet" scheme. I hesitate to say "Mars" because of the 40K fluff for the actual planet. It'll be some random red planet that would look akin to sci-fi depictions of Mars.

Red dune wastes and whatnot, though obviously my terrain kits will change that. First kit I'm making will be an abandoned Xenos ruin, akin to Ancient South American Indians. A mish-mash of Aztec temples, with stone pools and lots of jungle plants.

 

I've been putting off the additional layers of red and brown on the sections to finish up a Marine Biker for this coming weekend's tournament at my LGS. Once the biker is done, I'll get back to the table.

[ShinyRhino]

I made progress on these table sections a while ago, but never pulled thepics off the camera.

 

Here's a super-closeup of the texture on the top, with a very odd lighting change courtesy of Auto Levels in Photoshop:

 

http://i191.photobucket.com/albums/z43/goalie20/Warhammer%2040K/Tables%20WIP/boardtexture.jpg

 

And then a shot of a finished board section:

 

http://i191.photobucket.com/albums/z43/goalie20/Warhammer%2040K/Tables%20WIP/boardtop.jpg

 

You'll notice the brush strokes instantly. I got VERY frustrated with the final finishing of these things. The colors didn't turn out how I wanted them to, and I had a really hard tme bringing out the texture with a drybrush. After endless cycling through drybrushing, sponging, and repainting...I gave up. This is how they'lllookin the end. I had to force myself to realize that no one is going to be looking that closely at the tabletop, especially once I buid terrain features for it. Considering 1/4 of the board is supposed to have terrain over it, this paint job will work just fine.

 

I'm now applying a layer of black paint to the sides, and will then seal them with a couple coats of matte sealant. Then I'll move on to making the South American style steppe pyramids, and the jungle stands.