Scratch Building a Wargame Board - Almost Ready for Paint

Where We Are

The board is all dry. This stuff is mostly locked in—not going anywhere. Even the stray bits are locked in.

The Plaster of Paris Mix

Two parts plaster of Paris to one part water. Mix it up with your hand. Now we glob it on.

I was hoping the white texture from last night was enough, but I needed to bust out plaster of Paris. Otherwise it was getting way too expensive. Going pretty thick.

The Technique

After globbing it on, scoop up the extra and put it back in your bucket. We’re keeping that blistered look—this is going to add to it.

Then take a wet sponge and dab. Stipple. Go straight up, straight down. No dragging. That’s how we form natural texture and erase our pallet knife strokes.

Don’t Worry About Brittleness

If you’re worried about plaster being brittle, we’re going to hit this with so many more materials. I’m going all out on this. It’ll have so many additional textures—overgrown alien civilization vibe, but it could work for Warhammer Fantasy Battles or Warmachine.

Using Leftover Plaster

Dump the rest into a cheap, flimsy cookie tray from the dollar store. One side will be a completely flat sheet when it hardens. Then you can bust it up for ruined walls, basing material, or terrain projects.

The 10-Minute Working Life

After it sits a little bit, you get a different texture when you hit it. Now I’m going sideways to feather edges out. Use ripped up sprue and blister foam to take away harsh peaks—we don’t want it looking like Cool Whip out here.

Adding Thin Off-Cuts

Had thin off-cuts from the other board. Adding them with glue and pushing them into the medium to break up the seams. It’s never too late—that’s the cool thing about terrain. As long as you have glue and more trash, there’s always more trash to glue.

The Talus

Woodland Scenics talus (though you could use cat litter or dirt). I want the bigger chunks to create more textures and make the panel lines less obvious. The organic shapes will blur that line.

The Wetter Water Mix

70% Elmer’s glue, 20% water, 10% isopropyl alcohol. The isopropyl breaks surface tension so it goes down into all the cracks and locks the glue into place.

I put way too much on. It’s okay—it’s just trash, guys. (My mom said I had to stop cussing in my videos.)

Blending Stones

After fixing the dryer guilt-free, I lost my pallet knife. So using a busted brush instead—globbing on the AK Interactive earth texture and feathering it back out. Any places with brush strokes in the plaster mix, just dab on more base effect.

Our textures are really getting crazy now.