Friday 3 January 2014

Polar Adventures - part 2

So here is the second part of my Polar Adventures thread...

Part 1 can be found here...Polar Adventures Part 1

With the weather breaking for the better I was able to get down to the shed and start on the base boards for the Polar Adventures project.

I started with the standard 9mm MDF squares that have become the terrain boards of choice in the shed. These are all 50cm x 50cm square. Sixteen boards cost me c£28 cut from my B&Q (New Malden) - Its best to buy the really big 8ft x 4ft sheets and to get the store to cut them for you.

I did try Champion timber but they wanted £24/sheet plus 50p per cut - so B&Q won hands down.

First up I primed the boards with white emulsion paint.



Once the primer was dry I liberally covered the whole board in PVA glue and then covered the whole board with sand, grit and ballast. This is a messy job !



With one board done I covered a further nine before running out of basing material. This reminds me that I now need to find an alternative stockist to Modelzone now that it has gone belly up. I left all these boards to dry overnight.



This morning the boards got their first coat of paint - again white emulsion (as it cheap). I plan to put on about three coats the top one being acrylic for a stronger bond.


Hopefully you will agree the 'snow & ice texture' is coming through.



Drop by again in a couple of days to see how these have worked out...

Cheers

6 comments:

  1. I don't ever seem to find anyone at my local B+Q who's willing or able to cut boards. Which is a shame as it would make it so much easier for me.

    I like how this is coming on and yes I can see the texture. Keep us posted

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  2. Those are looking really good! I've got some Copplestone Polar adventurers somewhere and always wanted to do a board for them so this is particularly interesting.

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    1. I know the figures you are talking about...just ordered some

      It's funny but there are very few tutorials on polar and ice terrain scrapes...this is very much a journey into the unknown

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  3. We'd thought about something similar a couple of years ago but in my son's warped imagination it also included evil remote controlled killer penguins and ice sheets that broke up as the game progressed (plunging figures to their doom at the tusks of evil killer remote controlled walruses)... I do worry about him sometimes!!

    The project looks really good!

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  4. Thanks for posting this. I am planning on making a winter terrain board myself and I am happy to see how you do it so I can pick up some tips.

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