Making River Pieces For My Desert Gaming Board Part 3

OK, now for the third and final installment on how to make river scenery. In part 1 we cut the hardboard to make the bases for the river sections and made the banks from sand and wood glue. In part 2 we painted everything and glued scrub brush bristles down with a hot glue gun to make bunches of grass/reeds.

So now onto working with the resin! You'll need about 8 oz of resin if you made a river as large as mine (enough to span 6 feet.) You need resin that will dry clear. I used EnviroTex Lite pour-on resin as you can see in the pic to the left. If you cannot find this (I bought mine at AC Moore but you should be able to find it in the woodworking section at most larger craft stores) you can use GW or Woodland Scenics Water Effects and apply a couple coats.

If you have them, some latex gloves are a good idea to use. That way if any resin gets onto your hands it's no big deal. So first off was to mark cups at 4 oz. To do this take 2 clear/frosted plastic cups and use a measuring cup and pour a half cup of water into each plastic cup and mark it with a sharpie marker. If you're making smaller spans of river or making a pond or digestion pool or something of that effect, you can use less. Just be sure to use EQUAL amounts of resin and hardener! So anyway, dry the cup with a paper towel so there is no water left inside. Next up, pour the resin into one cup to the 4 oz mark you made. Then pour the hardener into the other cup to the 4 oz mark. Pour the hardener into the resin and mix for two minutes to be sure the two components are completely integrated with each other.


Next, pour some of the resin onto a river section where the water is supposed to be. Using an old brush, that you don't mind tossing after this project, spread the resin around so that the area between the two river banks is covered and looks wet. If you added any sand in the middle don't totally cover this but do cover the edges. This will make it look semi-submerged. If you made a fordable area like i did in the pic to the left, you can lightly apply some of the resin to look like the water is still flowing through but is quite shallow and able to be crossed easily.

Do this for each piece of your river section. I made seven (A-G) to span my desert board. If you look at the pic to the right you can see how it looks on the board... Now I have my own Nile river running through my desert! Good luck making yours!


Til next time,
Steevo

Making River Pieces For My Desert Gaming Board Part 2

OK, so here we are in part 2 of 3 of my tutorial on how to make river pieces. In part 1, we cut our hardboard pieces, made a sand paste and created the riverbanks of the pieces. Now we'll paint it all and glue our pieces of scrub brush to make reeds.

Ok, first up is to get out the latex paint (Ace Sensations Earth Tone), all the banks and outer sand areas get painted with this color then a heavy drybrush of Bleached Bone. This will give us our sand color and a nice highlight.

Next up we paint the water area with the dark blue (I used an old Citadel color called Deadly Nightshade) then along the banks we'll paint Ultramarines blue. This will give the appearance of a shallower area. We'll also do a taper from any spots of sand in the middle as you see here. This is where the labeling underneath comes in. Not only does it keep the order corect so the banks line up but when you paint the shallow areas you know which way to taper the lighter color because of the directional arrow underneath.

Now onto the finishing touches. First off get out the Knarlock Green and stipple it along the banks to simulate algae and other underwater plants that grow in the shallow areas. Once this is done get out the scrub brush, a pair of scissors, and plug in the hot glue gun. Hot glue is the quickest east way to do this as it not only glues the bristles to the base but also glues them together so they don't fall over. So grab a small bunch from the brush and snip with your scissors. Then take the hot glue gun and apply glue to the bottom and then around the sides at the bottom so you are making a glued together bunch of bristles. Now, before the glue starts to cool, place the bunch of bristles in the spot you wish and hold it in place for about 1-20 seconds. As you see in the pic you want to apply around the banks and any shallow fordable areas. This looks more natural.

Once you have all the painting done and the bristles glued down it is time for the resin! That will take us to part 3 of this tutorial. Check back soon for the resin application and we'll finish the river!

Til next time,
Steevo

Making River Pieces For My Desert Gaming Board Part 1

OK, so I decided to do some nice river pieces for my desert board. It's not a very hard project but for those of you that have never made any water pieces for your wargaming table this will be a somewhat "How-To".

So anyway step one was to figure out how long I wanted my river to run and whether it should run the short distance i.e. 4 feet long or the long distance i.e. 6 feet long. What I came up with was why not make pieces to do both! Since the river is going to be made in sections, why not make it work for both lengths!

First off was the materials. You'll need the following:

• 1/4" hardboard for the base
• Sand (I have a big bag of playground sand I bought at a DIY store for about $5 a few years ago and I still haven't used it all!)
• Wood Glue
• Scrub Brush (natural fiber or some natural fiber rope... we'll be using this to make some grass here and there at the banks)
• Paints: a dark blue (I'll be using an old discontinued citadel color called Deadly Nightshade), Medium blue (I'll be using Ultramarines Blue), A Medium Green (will be using Knarlock Green), and whatever colors your gaming board are painted. Since mine if for a desert board I'll be using my desert color of latex paint (Ace Hardware Store's Sensations Earth Tone) dybrushed with Citadel Bleached Bone.
• Two Part Resin that sets up clear. I'll be using EnviroTex Lite Pour-On but you could also use GW's Water effects and use a few coats if you don't have acess to any clear resin.

First thing I did was decide the width of the river pieces. I went with 7" wide pieces. I marked out the hardboard creating straight sections 12" long and then made two 90 degree curves and a 180 degree curve or "U". In order to make it so I could use it going both directions I had to marked out and cut a smaller 7" long straight section. The length of this smaller piece will depend on how much length your curves and "U" piece are. Or you can just make a straight section of river and use four 12" pieces.

Next was the cutting. I used a circular saw to cut the hardboard into 7"x12" pieces and cut the curves and U into square pieces. Once this was done I got out my jigsaw and cut the square pieces into the respective curves or U sections and added some shape to the straight pieces so they weren't just a rectangle with straight edges (up to you if you want to do this step.)

Now that the pieces were all cut I gave them a feathered edge so they will blend in with the table more. So using my razor knife I shaved off some of the hardboard then sanded it a little using medium grit sandpaper. Now the pieces were ready to build upon.

Next off was to make a paste out of the sand and wood glue. So I poured sand into a plastic bowl (soup bowl from wanton soup from the local chinese joint) and added a little water and then wood glue. You want the consistency of the paste to be not too wet. If it's too wet there will be no texture and the paste will not stay in place. It will run all over. Go for a dryer mix and if it's too dry you can always add more glue a little at a time. If you make it too wet add more sand. Using an offcut of the hard board for a mixing stick I mixed up my paste and started laying it down in "sausages" onto the board on each side of the river to make the banks. Now taper it out with a shallower angle on the outside area of the bank and a sharper angle on the inside "river" area of the bank. I used my fingers for this. Once you get to the end of the piece, lay down the next piece and line them up then start the sand on the next piece. This way your riverbanks will line up. One thing I did was to label the underside of the hardboard with a letter and an arrow showing which way the river was flowing. The pieces would just go in order alphabetically in the direction of the arrow. This way the paint and gravel for some shallower spots in your river will all be going the same direction. Also your riverbanks will all be lined up properly this way so they will look like they all go together. Let all the sand-glue-paste dry, overnight if possible.

Now that your riverbanks are set up, select a few areas for shallower ground and for areas that are fordable for your river. Glue down some sand and try to taper the shallow areas in the direction your river is flowing as you can see I did in the pic to the left. You also want to glue some sand onto the outer side if the riverbanks to give some texture for the ground. Let this all set up and in part 2 of this we'll be painting everything and adding the grass clusters!

This is it for part one of my river pieces. Hope it's helping you out.

Til next time,
Steevo