Dice And Downloads: February 2015

So here it is . . . finally I got myself around to posting the first installment of Dice and Downloads. A blog dedicated to all things table top and video gaming. With this first installment I’m going to briefly show the start of my 4x4 board used for infinity. For those of you not familiar with infinity It’s a skirmish game set a few hundred years or so in the future where man has colonized the stars and factions compete with each other on the sly for galactic supremacy. So none of this open pitched battle business, were talking small strike teams kicking in back doors of corporate offices to grab documents or 10 men trying to break into a factory to steal the newest Tec before it hits the open market. Like most projects I start ( and might I add and never seem to finish due to something new and shiny coming along and distracting me ) I had a sit down and think about what theme I wanted the board to be. As this board was mainly going to be for infinity I checked through the usual suspects that design infinity terrain Antenocitc Workshop, Bandua Wargames Micro Art studios etc . . . but taking into consideration I come from a background of at least 15+ of grim and dark I could not help myself from making something a little less pristine and craved something a little grungy, also making the table suitable for Necromunda. I eventually decided to go for some sort of toxic/waste processing plant that had been abandoned. This gave me the creative licence to paint lots of nice stains and grubby marks all over everything but most importantly have everything covered in moss and plant life giving a very Chernobyl/Fallout feel. A plus side was also not having to model lots of tables and equipment inside the buildings and I can assume the whoever decided to close the facility for whatever nefarious reasons would have taken all computers, files and desks etc . . but in some dodgy manor left a lot of waste barrels behind ( who needs health and safety in space right ) that can be dotted about each time the table is set up.

Here are a few images and games that I drew inspiration from.

So as with most painting projects I started from the ground up like normal. Fortunately I had three 2x4 boards behind a sofa that were used for 40k. I started off by painting the whole board Brown. I went to my local paint store and they scanned some Rinox hide or Charred brown for those of you who use Vallejo, and made a 2 liter tub of the stuff that most of their customers would paint a wall with. I then got a bag of sand from the pet store used for fish tanks and generously mixed it with the paint slapped it on the board quite generously. When it was dry I had to give it another coat to make sure there was enough grit on the board for the dry brush to pick up on and try avoid large brush marks. After this I heavily watered down black, red, brown and bright green paints to add toxic spills and patches all over the board. I had to do this in about three layers making the stains more dominant towards the middle. This made the board look a little chaotic but when the grass was put down it looked way more believable and natural.

Looking slightly chaotic and bare at this point.

When that was all done and was completely dried I gave quite a heavy dry brush of some cream colour that was the closest I could find to bone. Deluxe to really good tester pots for about £1.50 so it should last quite some time. After that did the standard patches of grass that had managed to grow back. You can’t tell from the photos but in the middle of grassy patches I put static grass to make it look thicker and give more tones. I added a light cover of watered down PVA over the board and scattered the flock everywhere after this, to gave a more natural look of grass sprouting through instead of standard patched looking way to vivid and planned. When this was dry the base board was done!