Hey guys, now for something completely different. For a while, I had the idea of creating a display board, a backdrop to take cool pictures and army shots like they do it in White Dwarf. This weekend, I finally made a trip to a DIY store and bought the necessary materials. Find out more after the jump.
So I bought a 12 mm MDF board, 120 x 60 cm (about 24 x 48 inches), filler, and a couple of large cheap brushes. I’m gonna use the filler to texturise the board, as explained in this video by TheTerrainTutor:
The board will be pretty simple. An urban style in dark grey with brown static grass, to match the bases of my Ultramarines and Blood Angels. I want to start quick and easy, so the whole project won’t take too much time away from painting models.
For this reason, I’m gonna buy pre-made Battlefield in a Box terrain from Gale Force 9, noticably the Gothic Craters and the Blasted Terrace. The gothic range from Gale Force 9 is pretty nice, such a bummer that most pieces aren’t available in any more.
Picture courtesy: Gale Force 9(taken without permission)
Maybe I’ll expand the available terrain later, but first I want to see how far those pieces will take me. For the background, I thought of a “matte painting” piece of artwork, printed by an online poster printing service. The whole setup will be pretty similar to the Age of Sigmar display you can see in GW stores, check out the picture below. Actually, the Age of Sigmar display was the final piece of inspiration I needed to start this project.
Picture courtesy: Warhammer Tottenham Court (taken without permission)
So yeah, it’s the first time I’ll work on a terrain project apart from some humble attempts in my teenager years. I’m curious to see how it will turn out (and how the final pictures with models will look like). But first I have to finish my squad of Dire Avengers. And no, don’t ask me about Armies on Parade or building a whole board. For now, this will only be a display board and backdrop 😉
What do you think? Any advice from some terrain building expert?
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Hey Stahly if its a display board you're doing you may want to check out this tutorial I've bookmarked along time ago when I wanted or will do an armies on parade board.
http://demimorganatutorials.blogspot.com/2012/08/tutorial-8.html
Beasts of War have a good recipe they dub the "MagiMix" which produces great texture effects for very little effort. Which by the looks of the supplies you have on hand would only need some sand and PVA glue to mix up a batch
As far as display board terrain goes, i think having some form of terracing is always a good idea, just to give the display some height and variety in the positioning of the mini's
Good plan. I like it, have you seen the terrain made by amera
http://www.amera.co.uk
Genuinely good stuff at a really good price. I have a factory of there's and and going to get a bunch more. Buildings with an interior would benifit from more work but any of the single piece bits should be dead quick to get great results from.
you need to invest in a smoke machine once you finished this mate.
Great idead to create a display board, one thing I'd suggest is adding some cheap bird sand from a pet store to the wet filler, I used to pick it up for about 50p a 1kg bag. Also it recommend sealling it down with a watered down coat of pva wood glue. It adds a lot more
I'm looking forward to seeing how you get one.
Hey Stahly, great idea! I'm sure there'll be lots of great pics coming in soon. Good luck with your display board. Did you already found the german "Baumarkt-Version" of the filler stuff TheTerrainTutor is using? I would be really interested in getting a name and test it by myself.