Tuesday 14 April 2015

On the road again...


One of my recent terrain projects has been to upgrade my desert table with some roads. Roads are fantastic in Flames of War v.3, providing speed to many units such as halftracks and most armored cars. They can tie areas of the battlefield together and bring a table full of random terrain together. I love playing on a table that has interesting terrain but that looks like something a person could find in the real world. Roads really help make that happen.


I needed these on my table



I had built roads for a previous table that I had in Romania, but I’d sold them to my FLGS when I moved. I thought I would build a new set, and explain step by step how I created them.


Acrylic roads:

The roads that I build are flexible, textured and modular. When I first looked at road techniques, I wanted something that could float up one side of a hill and down the other, while looking attractive. Most of all they had to be cheap and expandable. These criteria excluded most of the premade roads that I could find online. They tended to be rigid. Cloth also was excluded. It never looks like a road, and I want my tables to seem somewhat realistic. Buying online looked extremely expensive, and I didn’t want to have to wait for the company to come up with curves or other accessories.

I found an online tutorial on using caulking solution to make roads, and that is the route that I went.


Step 1: Materials

To build these, I used the following:
  • 2 tubes of brown acrylic caulking filler
  • A caulking gun
  • Knitters backing cloth
  • Baking paper
  • Bluetac
  • Various cheap artstore paints
  • Putty knife
  • Cheap paintbrushes
  • Blunt pencil
Note, if you ever do any window sealing or anything of the sort, you should have most of these things.

Step 2: Preparing the materials
The next step was to bluetac the baking paper down to a table I have. The acrylic caulking filler comes off of the baking paper when dry, so this step provided  for a nice base from which I could lay down some caulk.

I cut the knitters cloth in rough strips of about 2 inches wide. I wasn’t too careful about them being straight or consistant as I thought these would be desert roads that weren’t properly engineered or planned well. This also meant I could pump out many lengths of cloth.

I ended up cutting out 8 strips of cloth, which I laid out parallel to eachother on the table.

Step 3: Filler
I used the caulking gun to put caulking filler over the strips in sufficient amounts to be able to be spread over the entire cloth. I messed up in some areas and added too much, but the smoothing step takes care of this.

Once there was caulking filler on the cloth, I used the putty knife to smooth it down and leave only a thin layer of caulk on the cloth. I used the putty knife to provide some minor texture through little twists and turns.
Now smoothish, I took the blunt pencil and made 2 long, uninterrupted flowing lines down the cloth (now covered in caulking solution). These were roughly parallel and represented the ruts caused by cars, carts and other wheels. If you want tracks from tanks, you can wait until the caulking solution is somewhat dry and press tracks into the road. I chose not to given the desert nature.
I had some sand sitting around and I lightly sprinkled it on the roads for additional texture. I used VERY little sand. I hate overly textured terrain for its roughness and sandpaper quality. No one wants to use their miniatures on a damaging piece of terrain, so I kept the sand quite light.



Leave overnight for the caulking solution to fully dry.

 

Step 3: Painting
The basecoat is the most important step. You must paint the entire road, front and back. The bottom (back) of the road will never see the light of day, but it needs to have a coat of paint as thick as the topside basecoat (if not a bit more). If you only paint the top of the road, it will warp when the paint dries. Painting both sides results in flat roads. Make sure you paint BOTH SIDES.

Once the basecoat was put on, I gave the roads several lighter drybrush layers to bring out the texture. These were rough and were focused on just getting many layers on the road.

Step 4: Cutting to size
My strips were 3 feet long. I cut them at various lengths. I have several 18 inch sections, some 9 inch and some 6 inch sections. Places together they can form any number of shapes and roadway systems.


The entire project (20 feet of roads) took me a few hours of my time, along with a table being messy overnight.  The overall costs were quite low as none of the supplies are that expensive. The roads that came out are nice looking, easy to arrange and in the right scale.
I am thinking I will use the same technique to make the 12 inch by 18 inch landing zones for Vietnam. I can make a large, textured area with nice detail on the cheap.


Keys:

  • Get the right backing material. I have used plastic mesh for this, and now knitters cloth. Anything that will let the caulking solution soak in and is heavy enough to lay flat will do.
  • Paint both sides. Avoid warping by painting both sides of the road.
  • Don’t make them too wide. Too many roads are like 6 lane highways on the battlefield. Keep them skinny.
  • Don’t be afraid to experiment with textures, putty knife motions and roadway designs

 

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