Replicate the grid pattern of your sketch map onto your fabric covered boards by marking the corners of each of the one foot squares with straight pins. These will be your reference guides as you pencil on all the terrain detail found on the map: roads, towns, forests, etc. Now you’re ready to start painting… the hardest part. Almost everything you’ve done so far can be screwed up and still fixed. While painting, however, you’re working without a safety net.
If you botch some painted detail, the best you can do is cover it with a bit of forest or an unplanned swamp. Better to work slowly and carefully, adding details or paint layers with a light hand until you’re sure what you’re doing is what you’d planned. Once you’ve got any technique mastered (don’t hesitate to practice on a piece of scrap fabric first!), things will go faster.
I usually airbrush the forest interiors first, which are mottled green or brown-grey, depending on the season. The fields are airbrushed on next, after a likely pattern has been decided upon. Study aerial photography of farmland, and the road and lane patterns on your maps to get an idea of the fields’ typical shapes and alignment. Vary the colors of your fields as well, for additional realism. You might find two or three crop types present, each with its own shade of green, plus fallow (grass) fields, newly plowed (brown) fields or harvested (tan) fields all on the same board, depending on the season. A sprayed mottling of darker field shades gives further definition to hills, river banks, wet spots, declivities, and other terrain features.
Remember to keep this detail subtle! It’s too easy to ruin a good effort by over-spraying your detail work! Lastly, paint on the roads, using a 1/2 inch brush: tan with darker brown edges if dirt, or light grey if hard surfaced. Push down the styrofoam with a blunt instrument or thumb to level the roadways where they pass over hillsides or irregular terrain; keeping roads flat is as visually important as keeping your buildings level! I usually further define the fields and roads with an edging of sprayed “weeds” (an irregular, patchy border of green splotches).
THE SURFACE DETAILS: BUILDINGS AND TREES
Buildings are added next to the board. All my “6mm” buildings (actually about 70-80% scale, to enable a greater number to be used) are fabricated from commercially available hobby balsa wood, and stuck on the terrain board with good old double stick tape. 15mm buildings (also slightly smaller than the nominal scale) are often large enough to stay in place without the tape. Around the villages and farms are usually found green yards and gardens, and light tan pathways elsewhere. These are well worth your while painting in, as well. Finally, add the trees.
My “6mm” trees are of two types. Most of my individual “summer” trees are carved bits of foam rubber mounted on an imbedded straight pin with epoxy glue. The foam rubber trees are sprayed with an aerosol can of green paint, and dipped wet into Woodland Scenics flocking material. A liberally applied over-spray of some aerosol fixative (or cheap hair spray!) can help keep the flocking in place. Make more than one size tree!
For tree lines, the same process is repeated using a strip of foam rubber, into which are carved individual “trees”. Each end of this tree line is anchored by an embedded straight pin, enabling it to be bent around curves or over hillsides. Several varieties of flocking are used in a tree line piece, to suggest different tree types. The second type is the “winter tree”, which requires a bit more effort.
Each 6mm winter tree starts as a square of coarse steel wool roughly 1 inch on a side. The upper half of a straight pin is coated in epoxy glue, and the lower part of the steel wool square is carefully twisted around the pin. Once the epoxy is dry, the upper portion of the steel wool is gently “teased” out into branches, and spray painted with grey primer overall. Additional character is later added using a little brown or white spray paint. I always use a good long-handled forceps to jam the trees’ straight pin “trunks” into the ground; never handle the upper portion of the trees if you can avoid it. I use Woodland Scenics “tree kits” for 15mm trees; for 15mm winter trees, I use BranchBunches.com’s branches instead of the Woodland Scenics foliage. The trees’ mounting peg is lopped off, and the trunk is drilled out with a Dremel drill to accommodate a straight pin instead. Don’t forget to clip off the pin’s head before epoxying the pin into the trunk.
FINAL TOUCHES
Additional details to the board are added as required. Railroad embankments or field works are easily made (in 6mm) using strips or scraps of felt. Vineyards are Woodland Scenics foliage net (for summer) or fine wale corduroy for winter. Bridges, forts, and specialty buildings are fabricated from balsa and expedient materials — much of which would not work in larger scales, where greater detail is expected. Fortunately, there’s plenty of 15mm items of this sort commercially available.
Lastly, you’ll want to consider using a long nylon strap (at least one inch wide) to secure the several segments of your board together, lest they shift during a game. I’d strongly recommend buying four metal “L” brackets to protect the corners of your styrofoam boards from the strap, too. Now your board (of however many segments) is ready for the addition of some little soldiers. The (mostly) shallow hills and valleys you’ve painstakingly sculpted with your hot knife should enable most stands to “climb” them without sliding downhill; the painted fabric also acts as a frictional surface. Once stripped of the buildings and trees, the boards may be fairly easily stored away in an attic or garage for use in a future game… I’ve got about 15 of them in my attic so far!
The Battlefield in Miniature
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