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Post by LS650 on Oct 9, 2016 18:04:31 GMT
I finally have all the pieces on the Starter Set painted to my satisfaction. I placed them out on a mat I made for playing Wings of Glory - a 40"x40" piece of green felt that I painted up to look like fields. Obviously it's not anywhere near big enough. Not sure what I'll do. I like the look of those Cigar Box Battle mats, but they are a bit pricey.
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Post by madmorgan on Oct 14, 2016 11:03:43 GMT
Hmmm yes the Cigar Box are expensive, but just one will do as they're actually a little bigger than they say. Any number of them can work for you, but, choose one that is 'general' - farmland or rolling grassland. I'd also recommend you look at the historical ones for 15/20 mm scales as they offer a nice mix of terrain. Remember that with Paper Terrain, its easy to get building at a good price and you can place them (intact or as ruins) on any mat. Just one mat and a set of buildings, gets you a many games worth table to play on. As an alternative, go to a fabric or craft store, even a Walmart. Purchase a big piece of 4 x 6' green felt. Shop Walmart or Dollar Store for buildings, as well as local pet store (lots of stuff there for gaming). Get some 12" square felts in brown, blue, grey and light green and dark green for your hills, waterways, town limits, and forest areas (light green for light woods, dark for heavy). All this works to present a nice table with swap out terrain and stays within a limited budget.
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Post by LS650 on Oct 14, 2016 20:30:45 GMT
I decided to make a 4'x6' mat for playing AQMF. I bought a large piece of cheap green felt for about $20 at a fabric store. I then picked up some cheap bottles of green, brown, and grey acrylic paint from the dollar store. I marked up the roads and fields with a jumbo Sharpie marker, using the layout of one of the Cigar Box mats as inspiration. I've spent maybe a couple of hours an evening for the last two or three evenings painting it up. You'll also see some green 'clouds' that are two pieces of green felt glued and painted to make some placeable foliage. I just need a bit of blue paint to paint the little 'creek' on the one side, and I'll call it done. Total cost has been maybe $30.
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Post by mikedski on Oct 15, 2016 2:56:10 GMT
Can you incorporate your Wings of Glory mat with the 6x4 mat?
Also you could make some crop field overlays similar to your vegetation.
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Post by LS650 on Oct 16, 2016 0:19:11 GMT
What I'd like to build at this point are some buildings, both whole and damaged. I've made a few buildings by painting some small boxes with primer, then printing some rooftop tiles, doors, and windows on a color laser printer, and gluing those onto the boxes. They don't look too bad...
I think I'll also try using some box corners to make some ruined building remains. Maybe get some HO scale train, track, and other objects to add some scenery.
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Post by madmorgan on Oct 16, 2016 12:14:06 GMT
Beautiful work there LS650! You have a good artistic eye - that looks every bit as good as a Cigar Box without the cost - I'm inspired. You might want to do a bunch of different streams to lay down on the mats so you don't 'fix' the current mat with a water area. Maximum flexibility maintained. With your talent you could easily do some more of these later, maybe one with a beach landing theme (or evacuation) and one with a 'brown' terrain makeup. Heck, a few strips of Red Weed could make it in - Cigar Box has quit offering the Red Weed as they were AD licensed - maybe IG could reach out to renew those btw. Man, you're really good.
Sorry just realized you already have the creek on the mat - np, it'll look good and is more accurate depiction on the East and Midwest areas of the country. There is always a small stream or run off in any area of flat lands.
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Post by boxholder on Oct 16, 2016 16:50:34 GMT
If you want a replacement for the "red weed," a company called LifeLike makes lichen, used by model railroaders for autumn foliage, in a vrery lurid shade of red. So, over the railroad scenery section, again.
Of course, Cigar Box could always find the "Crimson Fungus" or the "Scarlet Pestilence" or the "Blood Red Privet." If they want to.
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Post by madmorgan on Oct 17, 2016 18:07:17 GMT
Yep Woodland Scene also makes red lichen and there is any number of other companies that have similar available for sale. Of coarse with Craigs degree of artistic skill, he could make up some 'Red Weed' fairly easily.
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Post by LS650 on Oct 20, 2016 5:15:31 GMT
Finished my larger mat. I also made a crashed Martian cylinder: I took a round cardboard gift box from the dollar store, cut the bottom off at an angle, painted it silver, and then glued it to a square of green felt. I then applied liberal amounts of glue, HO-scale 'coal', and a couple shades of brown acrylic paint to simulate upturned soil. The buildings are just some cardboard boxes that I painted beige. The roofs and doors are printouts I found online for HO-scale buildings, cut to size and glued to the boxes. You'll also see a bunch of smoke markers: those are chunks of polyester pillow stuffing, dipped into a mix of Elmer's glue, bright yellow acrylic paint, and water. After giving them a soak in that and drying, I then spray-painted the puff-balls with light gray paint to give them a smokey look. If you look close, you'll also notice three small BEF Whippet tanks. These are from the game Command & Colors Great War. They're 15mm scale, so perhaps a tad small but I think they suit the game's look.
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Post by Quendil on Oct 21, 2016 11:43:17 GMT
That looks great
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Post by madmorgan on Oct 23, 2016 8:25:34 GMT
Like the Whippets as well - I've got stats somewhere in my stuff for those. As I recall, they only manned 3 MGs at a time due to space and crew numbers. They could 'stuff' another man in for all 4 MGs. I covered it in the stats - I'll try to find and post them here.
Btw it looks good with all that 'work' you put in. Good stuff!
Here is the Whippet:
*Whippet Tank: 1 element/1 unit Independent @55 points Speed 8" Defense 5 Armor 6 Special: 4 crew option, radio [FDC] , (4) Hotchkiss MGs Rng 20" +1Pow RoF 2 Special: one in each arc - 1 forward field of fire, 1 right/left field of fire, and one rear field of fire.
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Post by hardlec on Oct 23, 2016 20:59:33 GMT
Did you use "Textile Medium" or just plain acrylic paint? I love the cylinder. I have a piece of broken storm-drain pipe I hoe to use for the same purpose.
I have a 4x12 foot canvas drop cloth that I am considering using to create two 4x6 foot maps, one midwest farmland and one southwest/Texas.
My problem is, being dyslexic, it is very hard for me to make a properly random pattern.
There are several ways to transfer a printed pattern to paper:
It is possible to make one heat transfer from a black and white copy from a photocopy machine onto cloth.
It is possible to buy iron-on transfer sheets and iron these onto a game mat.
A trick to both these techniques: if using multi-sheet artwork, piece the paper together and then do the ironing. You will probably not be able to index the sheets and add them one at a time.
It is possible to iron a sheet of wax paper to cloth, and then feed the cloth into an ink-jet or laser printer. This allows for printing "long" pieces if you have a "banner printing" function, but this gets expensive and the resolution is low. I had planned to use this technique to make roads and patches of red weed.
The easiest way to print on fabric is by screen printing.
LS650 has struck upon the best way to make a one-off mat: Paint it on cloth.
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Post by LS650 on Oct 24, 2016 0:38:47 GMT
The original felt is green, and cost me a few bucks at a fabric store. I used a 'magnum'-sized sharper to first draw in my roads and creek, then just drew rough lines to parcel the rest into rectangles. The paints are cheap acrylics in hues of brown and green, bought at the local dollar store for a buck per tube. I mix a bit of green and brown in various portions with tap water, in a ratio of about 3:1 for water to paint. I then used a cheap sponge brush to dap the watered-down paint into the various land 'parcels'. I left the creek and the roadways for last, painting them with a stronger blue or grey acrylic-water mix. All of this can make a mess, so I did all of this on a waterproof plastic tarp!
The 'bushes' are just simple clouds that I drew on green felt. I then cut them out and dabbed on some different shades of paint to give them a bit more depth. As these are just loose patches of felt, they are very easy to reposition to vary up the terrain.
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Post by madmorgan on Oct 24, 2016 19:33:03 GMT
Again, some wonderful inexpensive techniques that are sure to become popular as we spend our monies of new (and reprinted) IG products
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