A scenery mess that turned out better than expected

A few months ago I made some cheap wooden block sci-fi terrain (see here). One item I had not got around to completing was a base board for this terrain. My original idea was to get some MDF board from the hardware store and paint it grey. While shopping with my wife at a material and craft store last week, She was looking for material for her quilting, and I was doing my normal wondering around the store for any wargame terrain opportunities. I came across some grey vinyl and decided that this would be perfect for a wargaming mat. Not only that it was 50% reduced price at $16 per metre. Bonus! I bought 2 metres which will nicely cover my 6x4 foot wargaming table.

The grey vinyl

A close up of the vinyl texture

The vinyl has a texture which I was hoping to highlight with a paint wash. I applied different test washes and a sand coloured wash worked quite well. It was not quite what I had in my mind, but I decided to go with a sand wash and apply a dark grey wash over that. Hoping this would provide some overall colour variances.

A light sand wash applied

The black wash was applied not too well

Unfortunately I was having difficulty applying washes and could not get a good consistent look. I tried another wash, but it was just not working for me and when I look at the overall look it was getting darker and darker. I attempted a light brush of sand to see if I could highlight the texture and lighten the look at the same time. Not good, I only achieved highlighting a brick design from the bricked area I was working on.

At this point I was most disappointed and decided I best somehow retrieve the situation and clean off the layers of washes and messed up highlighting. A sourer was sourced from the kitchen and the clean up began.

The clean up showing the light after effects on the left hand side.

The clean up had two effects. Firstly it got rid of the dark washes back to the original light grey of the vinyl, but it also left the washes in the grooves. Effectively, giving the desired look I was originally trying to achieve. In no time at all I had scrubbed, or is that scoured, the vinyl and had a wargaming mat.

A close up of the effect once cleaned up

The wargaming mat on the tabletop

Any new terrain needs to be tested out and the tabletop was soon filled with all my available sci-fi building scenery to create a space dock of sorts.

Terrain was added

All available terrain was added

A quick game was soon underway