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Thursday 8 January 2009

Table Top Battles - Third set of terrain boards - slight change of colour

The MDF has proved more difficult to paint that I had first expected. It soaked up the acrylic emulsion paint like a sponge, especially along the edges. However I persisted ... and this morning I thought that I had finished.

Before marking the grid onto the terrain boards I decided to see how some based figures looked against the green colour I had chosen to paint the boards with. This proved to be a very wise move on my part. They looked awful. The green was just too drab, and made the figures look drab.

So what to do?

A quick look around my store of model paint revealed that I had several pots of Games Workshop/Citadel 'Goblin Green'. I have used this colour on figure bases over recent years, and thought that I could use the colour on my terrain boards. So I painted one of them in 'Goblin Green' ... and it looked just fine. I have now painted all of the boards with this colour paint, and although they will need another coat to make sure the original colour does not show through at all, I am now on track to get my final set of terrain boards finished within the next seven days ... I hope!

5 comments:

  1. Terrain is one of those odd beasts that never quite works out like you'd imagine it. Trial and error is the only way to go. I remember purchasing GW powdered snow to add to a bunch of trees (old Bacchus 6mm, metal cast trees, soaked up paint like a nothing on earth and we never worked out why). I dabbed pva on one tree and dipped it in the snow. It look terrible, but the snow on the base looked great.

    I ended up adding snow to the bases of all the trees and then dry brushing a little white paint over the tops. It shouldn't have worked but it did.

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  2. I've been struggling with "just the right shade of green for my table and bases as well. Its tough because green tends to darken when it dries... so its hard to judge when you put the stuff on.

    I just yesterday used a mix of Vallejo "military green" and Citadel Foundation "Knarloc Green" and just a slight change in the mix resulted in two different greens....very difficult to get right.

    --Dave

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  3. 'Goblin Green' would not have been my first choice of colour for the terrain boards for two reasons. Firstly, expense - I have used four pots so far and will not doubt use at least another one before I have finished which is expensive when compared to the cost of normal acrylic emulsion paint. Secondly, I thought that the colour would be a bit overpowering on a large area.

    In actual fact the result is better than I had hoped, and it is worth the expense for that reason alone. Furthermore I suspect that Games Workshop/Citadel will keep this colour in their range for the foreseeable future as they use it a lot themselves. The fact that quite a few of my figures have bases painted in 'Goblin Green' (or something very similar) is an added bonus.

    I think that playing wargames on aesthetically pleasing terrain enhances the enjoyment of the game. This does not mean that the terrain has to have lots of detail but that it is in keeping with the style of wargame being played. The TABLE TOP BATTLES wargames rules that I am using are designed for fighting stylized wargames. They make no pretence of being ‘realistic’; therefore the terrain I will be using will also be stylized. What I suppose I am aiming to achieve is my own version of Joseph Morschauser's games.

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  4. re the absorbant properties of MDF, I have usually found that if you seal it with PVA first it doesn't soak up quite so much paint.

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  5. Ah! I knew there had to be some way of dealing with this possible problem but had not thought of trying PVA. Should it be watered down of 'straight from the bottle' so to speak?

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