Display Board for Adepticon - Part 2 (Skaven)

As promised here is a walkthrough of the making of my Skaven display board for Adepticon.

Upfront there were a few things that I needed to achieve:

• it had to be light (air travel does that to you)
• it had to fit into my suitcase (see above)
• it need to fit the theme of my existing Skaven basing
• it needed to be flexible - ie able to be used for more than one army configuration. 

So with that in mine let's walkthrough what I did.

Step One - I needed to use a material that was sufficiently light for air travel and was big enough to display the army. I worked out what I could fit in my suitcase and quickly determined that wouldn't be big enough. Therefore I settled on a split board.

Step Two: I purchased a set of 30mm yellow foamboard from a local insulation company. I then used a jigsaw to cut two pieces that fit together. Each piece is 28" x 20". Their flatness will allow me to wrap them in bubble wrap and carry in suitcase for trip.

Step Three: My Skaven army is based using a paving/wall theme. Therefore I wanted to recreate it on the board. I took a sheet of cardboard 3mm thick and drew up paving stones 20mm by 40mm. I then cut them out - no easy task given the thickness of the board. This gave me 484 paving stones....in the end I only needed 268....here are the remainder in all their unfocused glory.

Step Four: Using PVA I glued them all to the foamboard leaving a 1-2mm gap between the individual stones. Two major gaps were left. When you do this make sure you have a plan before you start sticking things down. I did :-)

Step Five: Again using PVA I glued coarse sand into the gaps to represent the dirt between the slabs.

 Step Six: Both boards were given two coats of matt Black paint. You can buy test pots from Resene for $4 each which do the job perfectly.

Step Seven: I used anonthe Resene test pot "Mako" to paint all the individual flagstones. I then use Resene "Creole" to paint the intervening dirt. This was drybrushed with GW Zandri Dust.

Step Eight: Each flagstone was drybrushed with Resene "Mako". I picked up a black photoframe 5" x 7" from local shop for $5 and made an army nameplate. This was stuck down into one of the gaps I had left.

Step Nine: I randomly stuck static gras into the dirt gaps to break up the paving. It gives it a more natural feel and fits what I've done with my Skaven.

 Step Ten: The one thing the board lacks is height. Due to transportation issues this is an unfortunate constraint. To get over this I decided to use one of the terrain pieces that I had purchased from Tabletop World - The Abandonned Factory. This reinforces the theme - where else would a Skaven army set up HQ in an Empire town - and breaks up the flat nature of the board. I can wrap this piece and put it in my case.

Finished Board: Here's the finished board with my Skaven army placed on it. I think the board complements the army and together they sell the story of a Skaven force emerging into an Empire town.