Work-in-progress

I don’t recall what possessed me to start this project. Maybe it was buying tickets to Adepticon this March, in Chicago. Maybe it was when Armada local James suggested a “fleets on parade” event at the Vancouver Prime Armada event on January 18th. Who can say what madness came over me, but it did and now I must fulfill the desires of my muse to the end.

Design

I started with a piece of paper. Actually, I started with an idea, but since that part was a flash out of no where, the paper is the first actual action I took. Having done this kind of thing before, I knew you had to plan out where things would sit on the board, otherwise you end up with squished models, rather than an aesthetic layout.

It’s also important to know how many models should go on the board. I cheated a bit, because really I should be planning this for The One Fleet to Beat Them All, but since I have more hobby skills than flying skills, I’m still testing fleet ideas. So I drew out spaces for 5 ships and 8 squadrons, which is enough for most fleets I’ll fly. The only time I’ve done more than 5 ships, I hated the fleet — the ships were entirely to squishy for my style of play.

I secured an ISD from Facebook (thanks Alex!), pulled a piece of hardboard from my hobby area, took some ships from my case and put them down roughly where I had planned out on the paper. This gave me an idea of how big the board should be, and by luck it was almost right, just needed a little trim off one side.

Unfortunately, I recently had a purge of hobby materials and wasn’t sure I would have enough foam. I took out every piece I had and laid it out – it wasn’t enough. I started cutting things in half and creating angles and put it all out on the board and felt like I could make it work combined with some other materials.

At the end of this, I had some foam and an ISD placed (no glue!) on a piece of wood.

Gluing

Seen here – a bunch of heavy objects sitting on foam and white glue. I left for Christmas holidays shortly after this, so didn’t get to work on it for a bit.

Filler and Rocks and Sand and Attachment Points

I made a display board a while back for my Blood Bowl Undead team that had specific places for models, but usually my boards have just been open spaces. Because Armada uses many stands to hold floating space ships, I needed a solution to put them on the board. (also, in one of the previous Adepticon board posts, I claim I bought the Model Lite from Magic Box, great to know!)

For the squadrons, I drilled holes into coloured wooden sticks probably used for kids crafts and glued them into the board. For the ships, I got plasticard thick enough for the ship bases that FFG uses and dug out space for the stand to attach onto them. It all works pretty good, which you’ll see in a bit!

I used a wonderful product called Model Lite. I don’t recall where I got it from, because it was in my hobby stuff. It’s so light that when you pick up the little jar, it actually feels lighter than a jar of air should feel. You know, like you picked up a helium tank? (no? haven’t done any kids parties recently?) I filled gaps that seemed wrong and gave some texture to some flat places.

On top of that, using the idea that you go from “biggest to smallest” with your features, I glued some small pebbles, then some larger pieces of corkboard to it.

The little holes on the edge of the board were not my idea, they were a serendipitous thought from my 2.5 year old. I’ve been building this upstairs, rather than in my usual hobby area because it’s out of the usual path of traffic. My kid went up there without me knowing, and took the bottle of super glue and punched a lot of holes into the foam. I was mostly stunned because I didn’t think she came up there, and also because super glue+toddler == probable hospital trip that I narrowly avoided, but, ultimately, I like the holes.

Edges and Corners

I was pretty sure I’d never finished the edges of a display board before, opting instead to paint the edges, but the photos above from Adepticon 2014 appear to say otherwise.

I took some thinner plasticard and cut it up into rough sections for my edges, then cut it out to fit better. In hindsight, I should have left it really rough and then glued, because it was much easier to cut to fit once it was fully attached to the board.

I didn’t have a plan for the corners when I did this, and I kind of wish I had. As I was doing it, I started thinking about photo frames or I dunno, like something in the hardware store. When I asked in CHOP! chat, Patrick suggested that diorama builders he’d seen used filler on the edges and sanded it down after. You can see my attempt at that above – I’m reasonably happy with it, but I think that if I’d planned to do this from the beginning it would have been much nicer. You can see that one edge was a little to short, and another I didn’t cut entirely straight. I’m certain it won’t be noticeable later.

Then I used the Model Lite and filled in the corners on top. The white glue holding the edges didn’t survive this, so I super glued the corners down!

So Much Sand

Coming down to it. I bought some “fine ballast” from Central Hobbies, and mixed it with white glue and water. I haven’t done this in ages, preferring the oxide paste from ages ago. This was cheaper and more accessible, so here we are.

It’s kind of a “slurry” texture, applied with a very large and very old brush. One day this brush is going to kick the bucket, and I’m going to have to write an old friend I haven’t spoken to for years that our old brush finally died. This project was not the end of it.

I initially was going for 100% sand coverage, but the more I did it the more I felt like the natural texture of some of the cut foam edges were worth saving. I went for 100%+ coverage on top, creating mounds, but went light on the slopes. I’m torn between thinking I’ve ruined it, and thinking it doesn’t look good in the slightest. >.<

As I’ve probably mentioned in previous posts, you want 100% glue coverage here. The foam melts when you try to prime it with aerosol primer (which I will), and a good white glue layer protects it all. Heavily watered down, of course.

Ships!

Lastly, I put some ships on it to make sure it all still worked! I’m glad I did, because the centerpiece slot was (1) no longer sized to fit the base and (2) had to much sand around it to allow entry. I had to clear some stuff away and re-glue.

I also lost one of my squadron holes in all the sand. 😛 I found it again!

Tomorrow night I start priming, and then I have to find my airbrush paint and sort out my airbrush and and then dry brushing sand textures! I’m not sure about the ISD either, honestly. It’s a very expensive model glued to a lot of garbage, and I’m not sure I’ll be able to do as good as the stock paint job. >.< Painting ships is hard!