Make a board for any game for less than $20

Transcript

I’m going to show you how to make a simple board for under 20 bucks that works with any miniature. If you have some muddy, yucky looking orcs, it works. They blend right into the board. If you have some sci-fi aliens from the superior sci-fi game, it works. It looks good.

If you want to play Middleear fantasy battles, it looks great. It looks even more amazing with these ghost boys, if I do say so myself. If you want to play some some Mörk Borg, uh if you want to play Forbidden Psalm, if you want to play Necromancer, if you want to play Shadow Dark, uh Dungeons and Dragons, it looks great. This is a small sampling of the board, but you can make a whole 2 by two area, probably a whole 6x4 area for under 30 bucks. Uh but I made this for less than 10.

So, let’s talk about it. To start, I’m cutting some foam. as every good project does, especially here on the Hobonic. Today marks one year since I uploaded my first video, and it’s insane. I’m really sad I didn’t do a video every day.

Uh I haven’t I haven’t been posting for about the last, I don’t know, 30, 40 days. My camera broke, then my laptop was broken. So, uh the only way they could stop me was by taking my camera away. But I’m back. The vlog has returned and I got to make a board.

You already you already know I need to make a couple of boards for many different projects. So, I’m cutting some tiles out. Uh I’m making a new MLY crew board specifically, but I wanted to show you how anybody with no skill who’s never done it before, who only has 20 bucks can make this board. So, cut my board out to the size I need it. If you don’t have a hotware cutter, just get Home Depot to cut it.

This is a foam project panel. Uh they This was like $5 for a 2 by two sheet. It also comes in 4x8 sheets, which is what you should get if you want to save some money. But once you have it cut to the size you need, the important part is to take some busted up scissors and cut all these gouges in it. And that’ll give something for this glue that I’m dumping on to bite into.

And this glue is just Elmer’s glue, a little bit of isopropyl alcohol, and some water so that it spreads out and thins out and looks like this after a few minutes. So once it’s here, uh, I’m dumping, this is very important, this is just playground sand from Home Depot in the United States. It is $5 for a fivegallon bag that will last you your entire lifetime. And the reason that playground sand is good is because it has all these different sizes of sand. It has fine sand.

It has these thick chunky boys. Uh once that dries, you just cover it with that same layer of glue. Again, I also use it for bases and it just looks great and it’s indestructible. Here’s that new hotness from White Star. Go subscribe to him.

This guy right here is my all-time favorite miniature. I’ve been hunting him for years. I finally found one. Had to snatch it up, but I’m going to paint this next. So, probably uh maybe start that tomorrow.

Uh I’m not sure, but I’m very excited to paint that mini from White Star again. go subscribe. If you become a member of his channel, you can get the STL and print it. Uh, it just dropped. So, now uh my goal is to keep this aimed at beginners.

So, I’m not using the airbrush. I just have some good old white primer and some water and a glass jar. And I am brushing it on like a peasant. Uh cuz uh most people probably don’t have an airbrush. You do not want to use rattle can.

You just got to do two coats. So, now I’m using scale 75 burnt skin. Do not use scale 75 burnt skin. use cheap craft paint here, but this is all I had and I wanted to [clears throat] get the video out today. So, this this became a very expensive project for me, but it doesn’t have to be.

You just want uh a brown, a nice neutral brown. This can be more fang brown. Uh two thin coats has a brown. Uh it’s just a dark a darkish neutral brown. If you prime black, you wouldn’t have to do two coats like I’m doing, but I wanted this to be a little bit brighter.

Uh, and now what I’m doing is I mixed in some uh some white into that base brown. And now I have this lighter color. I’m going back and I’m coloring in all the places where a little bit of primer is still showing through, but I’m using this lighter color to add some variation into the ground texture. So it’s not all just solid brown. And I’m making making two boards.

Again, these are for MLY crew. So two boards. These are 9 by9. I’m going to turn them into checkerboard patterns probably probably in the video tomorrow or maybe maybe the day after. Got to let it dry.

Look, I I’ve lost 60 lbs. I just wanted to flex my new face to you guys. I’m feeling good. I’m feeling great. I’m ready.

I’m ready to start the second the second year strong, baby. So, one thing I do want to point out is as you’re painting this, make sure you’re rotating it because if you only ever paint it from one side, you’re gonna miss parts of where the primer is. So, by doing this, you hit it from every angle. You don’t have any primer. And that’s what my little my little hand hand wavy.

My wife was like, “Why do you have two plates of mud on our kitchen table? Are you making videos again?” And I said, “Yes, and thank you because that’s a great compliment because this is just sand, paint, and foam. It’s very cheap.” Uh, let’s get back into the real audio now.

So, here’s where we are now. It’s time to dry brush. Again, I’m using Scale Color Buff, but this is just a a khaki color. Don’t use scale color paints on terrain. Uh, it’s it’s very expensive, but it’s not as expensive as having to go out and buy new stuff.

So, I just want to show you how I’m working in figure8s to the bristles, and then I’m getting almost all of it off the brush. You really want to make sure you’re slowly building this up. I am slapping it on like an animal. Uh, just very slowly building up that color because if you come in too hot, you’re going to have a streak of white on your board and it’s going to look terrible. by slowly slowly building up this this khaki tone.

It’s not going to look like you dry brushed it. People are going to know you dry brushed it, but it’s not going to look like you dry brushed it. It’s just going to catch the details and it’s going to very slowly build the color up. Uh so take your time. Maybe it takes like 20 minutes.

It’s get lost in the process, guys. Enjoy it, you know. Uh don’t don’t go in there with a whole glob of paint on your brush or you’re going to ruin the whole thing. Everybody’s going to laugh at you. They’re going to know you don’t know how to dry brush.

This is only only technique part is slowly dry brushing. And this is what you get. And now you don’t have to stop here. If you if you want like a a more forested board, you can flock it. You can static grass it.

You can wash it with a green wash. If you want like a super grim dark yucky board, throw some some blood on that thing. Wash it in nan oil. Wash it in an oil wash. But this is how you get a neutral brown board that looks great for every game.

And you can do a whole table’s worth for under 20 bucks. You’re looking at $10 in foam, $5 in sand that’ll last you forever, and a little bit of paint. Thanks for watching. Thanks for being here with the year for me. We’re back.

We’re coming in strong. See you tomorrow.