Saturday 11 February 2017

Scratch Build Deadzone Board

So here's my first attempt at a custom board. The mats are really nice but I wanted something with an additional level. I've seen several much better boards than the one I have here but I thought I'd post it any way.
  • The base is 3mm MDF which seemed to work fine was cheap and strong enough. Tiles are a thin tough card cut smaller than 3"x3" to give a well defined edge. I used a paper guillotine and set square to get consistent sizes with straight edges quickly. 

  • After cutting assembly didn't take a great deal of time and PVA held well.

  •  I then used a mixture of PVA, black paint, sand and filler to coat the tiles leaving the road. I could had done with using a runnier mixture with a lesser amount of sand to give better differentiation to the road texture later. I did apply some to the vertical walls, but this was a mistake and is unnecessary if you use something else to cover them as I do later.

  •  I then did a basic PVA and sand road, Next time i might use sand paper and cut into tiles as my sand layer wasn't as consistently flat as I would have liked. I then shaded between the tiles with a homemade black wash. The wash was standard CIF floor cleaner, water and acrylic paint.

  •  I thought all that grey looked bland, so added hazard strips on the road edge. The strips are made from wooden stirrers painted yellow. Taped laterally together to allow me to draw 45 degree angled lines with thick marker and set square. I found this was really fast and looked reasonable enough for me. There's a tutorial here for doing something similar with scotch tape and paint.
  • Finished off the hazard strips and clad the sides of the platform with textures plastic. Because I'm tight fisted so I used divider file I had lying around but the spray paint is peeling so next time I'll invest in Plasticard or use pillars to support the level (like a high rise carpark).

  • Finally I thought I'd show it with some of the basic out of the starter box terrain. It adds a nice big line of sight blocker between the sides of the board. In addition to giving height before even putting the buildings on.


In summation it cost me ten pence and a button and was a fun build. I might add a few more detail bits but the Mantic deadzone scenery is such good quality and price I think I might just buy a ton more rather than do too much more work on it. Maybe next time I will just build a base with the card and MDF, really want to try an alien jungle as I have loads of fish tank plant bits.

Let me know you thoughts and as always check out the Deadzone Builder.