Scenic Movement Trays Part 2

Vallejo Texture Paste Tips

One thing to point out: Vallejo basing material shrinks as it dries. We mostly did a good job covering up the magnetic plate underneath, but on this one I left it unfixed to show what happens. When it shrinks, you can see where the plate was. On the rest, I went back as it was drying and hit it again so you can’t see where the plate ends and begins.

No special trick—I use a spatula to apply, then go back with a sponge and dab it. If you don’t dab it, you get these peaks that look less realistic. We want it to look like dirt, not Cool Whip. My daughter helped with applying the texture—it’s very easy stuff. The jars are expensive though, especially now. It’s smaller than last time I bought it and it’s 30 bucks.

Dry Brushing

Using a big makeup brush with Serpent Bite Leather from Nostalgia Colors. These paints mimic the old school GW colors—this is basically Snakebite Leather. Worked it into the bristles inside the Altoids tin palette, took a lot off because I didn’t want to overdo it. This just adds warmth and picks up the edges. Pretty subtle effect.

I mixed in a little vanilla white for a second pass. The first dry brush was almost too subtle, so the white mixed in brings out the texture a bit more without going crazy.

The Magnet Test

Moment of truth—the magnets are working great. There’s just a single magnet at the bottom of each base and they’re locked in. They’ll never move like this during a game. Pretty satisfying. You still get the cool earth texture effect while having functional magnetic bases.

Grass Tufts

Using Gamers Grass products—the Highland set and Green Meadow. I need to matte seal the trays before adding the grass tufts, because if you matte spray over tufts they can get goopy and yucky looking. So spray first, tufts second.

Daily Vlog Reflections

This project highlights the challenge with daily videos. Yesterday was probably 30-45 minutes sanding, another 30 minutes cutting and gluing rubber strips, then almost two hours on two layers of Vallejo texture paste. That’s a big hobby project over two days, but it doesn’t feel like great video content broken across two days.

All said and done, probably about 8 hours of work to get these totally finished. The trays turned out great though—they’re hefty from the resin, magnetic, and the clean edges mean they could double as rough terrain for Warhammer Fantasy or work as Old World movement trays too.

This is what real hobby progress looks like. You don’t always get to finish a whole project in a day.