Having arrived back from New Zealand today on the first flight I had most of the day free. The weather was fine and sunny and I thought it would be a good opportunity to create a battle mat for the Western Desert (as I need to do the work outside).
The process involves watering down various colours and sponging them on to a painters canvas drop sheet (purchased at the local hardware store). When starting the sponging the first two colours, there is always the nagging feeling in the back of my mind that it is not going to work. I ended up using four colours, in some cases redoing colours to ensure a good coverage. Once I had the look wanted, the whole sheet got a light spray of a sand colour to help even out the look. When this was dry I added small random dots of green for vegetation.
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| Canvas drop sheet |
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| Sponged effect |
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| Lightly sprayed with sand colour and small dots of green to represent vegetation. |
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| Units on the finished battle mat showing the dots of vegetation |
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| A wider photo of the battle mat on the tabletop |
My next step is either to add a square or hex grid. Presently I am leaning to using a hex grid. I have created a 4 inch hex template and plan to start tomorrow slowly drawing on the hexes.
In the post today arrived a secondhand copy of "Tank Battles in Miniature - 1. A warmers' guide to the Western Desert Campaign 1940-1942" by Donald Featherstone. I am looking forward to reading this over the weekend.
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| While in a used condition the book was missing its dust cover. |
Peter,
ReplyDeleteYou have done a great job on the Canvas Drop Sheet - looks great for the Desert Terrain. Is the scale of your Armour 1/600th (2mm)? - or 1/300th (6mm)? ... just wondering. Cheers. KEV.
Thanks KEV. The models are 6mm by Heroics and Ros.
DeleteThanks Peter. 6mm is a very good scale- easy enough to tell a Sherman from a Panzer. Cheers. KEV.
DeleteGood work on your desert mat!
ReplyDeleteThank you. Now for the tricky part of drawing on a hex grid.
DeleteThe cloth looks spot on. I was reading a 'mat makers' report a few days ago and they said that adding sand or flock tends to shed those textures after a short time, so I think just the painted route is the best way to go. I had the East Front and North West books in the Featherstone series, probably my most read books ever!
ReplyDeleteThanks, I went with using paint only approach mainly as it is my preferred medium. The Tank Battles in Miniatures book looks like a real gem after reading a couple of chapters.
ReplyDeleteNailed it, Peter!
ReplyDeleteThank you kindly.
DeleteWas just wondering what were the four colors you used? I am wanting to make a battle mat using this technique.
ReplyDeleteHi Eric. The base colour used was called classic cream a fairly neutral household paint. This was watered down and mid-brown acrylic added. I did this four times with slightly different levels of brown added. The important thing was to really water down the paint do the first sponging, stand back and over sponge again if not quite right or the coverage was inconsistent. Because I was mixing the paint I started light first and gradually added the deeper brown tones. I hope this helps.
DeleteThanks, much appreciated. I may modify the colors a little but I haven't made any final decisions.
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