Gaming Mats Completed!

As per the intentions mentioned in my previous post, I have been making DIY gaming mats galore.

The above mat is 4'x2' (instead of 40"x20"), and thus a wee too large for The Walking Dead, but as I want all my mats to adhere to the 'normal' convention of using whole feet for table measurements I had to add those few inches to the standard All Out War board sizes.

Here is the concrete/tarmac/rubble/whatever 4x2 mat.

And the 2x2 version - various kinds of daylight, and inconsistent use of tungsten lamps messed a bit with the colour - it is more or less the same as the above mat.

Finally, I have made two earth mats for covering a full 6x4 table. They look almost square, which is because the short edges (meant to form the 6' edges of the board) are actually a bit more than 3' - I simply decided to use the whole width of the material.

Another Terrain Mat

I am making some additional mats for playing The Walking Dead: All Out War, and other purposes, probably also Frodo's Quest. The first two are going to be this 2'x2', and a 2'x4' earth/dirt mat, and then I am going to make both a 2'x2', and a 2'x4' concrete/tarmac/ash waste mat, so that can stage scenarios in both rural and urban settings.

I am aware that The Walking Dead specifies 20"x20", and 20"x40" playing areas, but I want the mats to fit in with 'feet standardized' mats/tables.

When those are done, I am going to purchase a new roll of that 'painters' felt' so that I can make some 4'x3' mats without old splashes of paint; I want to be able to keep just one set of blank boards near the living room to put on the dining table to accommodate a variety of mats. I can then keep my chipboard boards in the attic with no need for carrying them back and forth, which facilitates switching to the living room when the attic gets too cold for gaming.

Prelude to Woodbury: 15" x 15" Mat Finished

My concrete/tarmac/rubble mat for The Walking Dead solo is ready, I have located my painted zombies (and survivors), plus a lot of unpainted ones, and I really just have to paint Brian Blake (or muck up a character card for one of my painted survivors) to get stuck in. I expect to get a game going next weekend, provided nothing goes completely haywire during next week...

Prelude to Woodbury: 10" x 10" Mat (Almost) Done

I think I am going to paint over and re-drybrush the light patches (they are due to some old light yellow paint from when we redecorated before moving in - yes, I recycle 😉), otherwise I think it turned out quite well. It is not quite square, I shall have to cut off a thin strip at one side, but luckily it is too wide, and the mat will still be full size after the correction.

Some Mats for Prelude to Woodbury

After clearing some space on the dinner table, I cut and painted a 10"x10" and a 15"x15" mat of painters' felt. I opted for brown on the smallest one, as I am going to need that first, thus I want it to be done as quickly as possible, and I had to 'rescue' my partly dried up grey paint before I could use it. They are still drying by the way, that felt sucks up a lot of paint, and consequently the first layer takes quite some time to dry properly.

Tomorrow, if all goes well, I should be able to drybrush at least the small mat, and prep and rebase Brian (I am going to put all the models for this game on washers, too), and I just may move him forward in the painting queue.

DIY Desert Mat

I have been working at a 3x3 (approximately) test piece painter's felt desert mat, as I am going to make a 6x3 Tatooine mat for Star Wars Legion, and I wanted to start out with a smaller one that can also be used for smaller games like Pulp Alley, Strange Aeons, Sellswords & Spellslingers, etc.

I started out by painting some patches in various earthy colours; red-browns, light terracotta, khaki, etc., an drybrushed them with Buff Titanium. I did not like any of the results, as they turned out way darker than intended, and I decided to paint the entire mat with Buff Titanium, ending up giving it two coats.

I then mixed some white and Buff Titanium and drybrushed the entire surface, and I think it turned out OK, As you can see, the (used) felt had some wrinkles, and I should probably have ironed it before painting, but I wanted to get stuck in right away, and - hey - with some terrain pieces on top, the wrinkles should not be all that noticeable!