First Board: City

[Imanoob]

I'm making my first board ever. It is around 48"X60"(Tau ftw?). I'm going to buy that much insulation foam. Essentially, there will be a small canal with that goes straight down the board and roads that go in a square across the board(and over 2 bridges when it reaches the canal). The roads will require 5"X220" of fine sandpaper.

My questions are:

1. What's the best way to base the roads(sandpaper)? Can of black paint or GW primer?

2. I'm thinking about highlighting the road with a mix of chaos black and codex grey. Good idea?

3. How do I cut the foam so it's flat and the water in the canal will look even? A hot wire?

4. Would 2" thick foam do the trick?

5. What colours should I put into the canal(water)? I was thinking most gretching green, ultramarine blue and some hawk turquoise.

Thanks... I'm hoping this project won't leave me crying

[Dreidel]

1: That depends on what kind of road you want. If you want an asphalt road, you could do the sandpaper, or do a good texture-paint job on it. Also, never use spray paint near styrofoam, unless it well sealed. Unless you buy the water based latex spray that someone posted about recently (Krylon H20 or something similar).

2. Well, look at the roads near you. They're normally mostly black (for asphalt), so make sure it's a bit dark.

3. I find that a hot wire is hard to keep straight/flat, as I don't have the steadiest hand in the world. I'd go with a saw (preferrably a band saw or something like it), but styrofoam dulls blades easily.

4. If you want a 2" or less deep canal, then yes. Make sure you have a model with you whenever you make terrain (an IG grunt works fine) to make sure that you don't screw up the scaling.

5. GW put out a book a few years ago called something like How to Create Wargames Terrain. There was a pretty good guide in there on painting water. I'd have to dig my copy out to remember the way they did it. Hopefully someone has their copy more conveniently available and can help out.

[blueeldar]

Funny, I was thiking of doing exactly the same. If you are using modular boards, ie 6 styrofoam tiles pushed together so that you can more easily store it, you could have a modular canal as well, then you don't have to always use it. (It was a big error of mine when I made my first board to have fixed scenery as each game ends up being similar). I was thinking of using a bit of square section downpipe (from a gutter to the ground) for the canal, cutting one side off it to create a 'u' shape and then using that as a canal. I was thinking of leaving the sides proud of the rest of the board for walls, and making them look more wall like by the addition of rivets or stone paper or something, with a few gaps in the walls so that bridges crossing it don't have to be too high. I was also thinking of making three girder bridges to cross it, a bit like one of the apocalypse bridges (has everyone has thought of this idea recently?). Check out railway modelling sites for ideas about beidges to make. Good luck8Y