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Building
a DISPLAY-PARTICIPATION TABLE
Inspired by 'LAST OF THE MOHICANS'
By Eric Roof
during the 2005 Convention season Tim Greene and I
will be running a 'Last of the Mohicans' participation game. We will be
using the miniatures that I produce and the rules 'A Good Day To Die'
and it's supplement 'War In The Forest' by Chris
Peers and Tim Greene. I decided that I need a spiffy table to go along
with it.
This table was built in late December 2004 and early
January 2005
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First I looked to the story of 'Mohicans' for
inspiration and then the movie for it's beautiful visual effects. I
wanted to capture several different scenes and decided that I would make
the table to represent different parts of the story. The scenario is a
Rescue, and we will use the 'Pursuit' scenario from the book as a
guideline to our game. Magua has captured Cora and Alice Munroe and our
three heroes must save them.
So, with the particular scenario decided I begin the
first stages of planning.
The very first thing I do when building a table is sketch out
ideas. The table will be an 8x4' table in two parts, a 6x4 foot and a 2x4 foot.
In this case a quick color pencil drawing that incorporates
different elements of the story is drawn as an 8x4 table.
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The first thing I did when I started the table was to change the
layout of the design from a 4' x 8' to a 4' x 10', in two
parts (4x6 and 4x4) as I thought it would display better, and fit
into my vehicle!
I also forgot to take pictures of the other half of the table
prior to painting, so this part applies to that part.
I use Owens Corning Extruded Polystyrene over a wooden frame.
The frame was built similar to Games Workshops method seen here *GW
Link* (This saves me typing space!)
I then draw my designs directly onto the foam as it helps me visualize
the final design as I go. You can see the drawing on the foam in
the pictures. I use charcoal pencil to do this, as it doesn't
damage the foam.
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I glued a 4' x 4' x 1" thick sheet of foam onto the board
opposite, and an appropriate size sheet of foam on the other
half.
I cut a 2' x 8' x 4" thick piece of foam into the basic
shape of the cliff. I then glued this onto the two board
halves with liquid nails and weighted them down with many a book
and block, The tall cliff face was 'pinned' to the bottom
part of the cliff by using wooden dowels and liquid nails.
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*This and the first two pictures show the foam before it was
glued down, just incase you observant types get the wise idea to
comment about the obvious large gaps between foam and foam and
foam and wood.
I always layout the pieces to see how its going to look.
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After I glued the foam down, I used pink spackling compound to
fill any gaps in the foam and create a smoother transition between
levels. I use the pink stuff because it turns white when it dries,
making it easer to know when it, erm dries!
I then glued large pieces of tree bark in various places to
represent rocky areas and boulders. This part is done in a
somewhat random fashion. You have to place them so that they work
for gaming purpose but at the same time, not appear too uniform. I
also used clips from the movie to place some of the bark
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The larger pieces at the top of the cliff side are glued and
held in place with toothpicks.
In the background, you can see part of my jungle table. Many a
Dino Hunter has lost his innards here.
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I then place Woodland Scenics Plaster Cloth over the foam and
bark.
The Plaster cloth is a gauze type material in a plaster
coating. After soaking in water for a few seconds, you simply
drape the desired area with the cloth.
Using my hands, I shape the cloth over the bark and foam as
well as spread the plaster a little in order to cover the
'netting' look of the cloth.
You're supposed to give the cloth 24 hours to dry before
working with it again, but in California weather, I just wait
about a half hour before getting out the paint.
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You can see the texture of the foam in this picture.
You also get a good view of the domed shape part of the cliff
that Uncas falls from in the movie. Love sick fool...
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After the plaster cloth dries, I start to paint. I use black
most of the time for a base coat, but for some reason I started
using gray on this part.
I pour the paint into a paint tray and then I mix play sand
into it. I don't really have a ratio, I simply eyeball it to my
desire.
I then liberally coat the rock and cliff areas only, making
sure to get underneath and in between rocks and cracks and so on.
The rest of the table (the flat areas and hilly areas) are then
painted but without the play sand mixed in. I use a thick coat of
paint for this. I then immediately coat the area with play sand,
using a large cup to sprinkle the area.
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The reason I spread the sand onto this area, as opposed to using
the paint/sand mix is that it doesn't come out as thick as the
mix. Basically, the sand/paint mix looks very, very rough more
like rocky ground.
The spread out sand over paint looks a lot thinner, and once
painted looks smoother, more like dirt with small rock in it, not
rock with small dirt in it...
This is then allowed to dry over night.
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The other half of the table, done in the same way as the other. |
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Another angle. |
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And another angle. |
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And another... |
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This time a close up. You can see the waterfall, and part of the
river taking shape.
More importantly, you can see the texture of the play sand.
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More of the river and the ford (with an unpainted warrior for
scale). |
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more unpainted goodness. The white mass is a plaster rock, made
from Woodland Scenics rock molds. Pretty nifty affairs.
The canoes are by Redoubt.
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Here is the black paint I was talking about earlier.
This was just straight black paint (no sand mixed in) and acts
as the base coat for everything else.
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More black paint... |
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Now the dirt/ground area is painted with a flat brown paint. I
use a roller in most cases. The rocky areas get painted with a
large chip brush. |
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The next step is to dry brush the cliff/rock areas with a dark
gray. I used a large cheap chip brush for this and pretty much all
the other brush painting.
I also started to layout the trail with the gray paint, by dry brushing
gray over the dirt area. The river bank also gets a gray dry
brush.
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Next I dry brush the dirt areas with a lighter brown. I also do
a heavy dry brush over the river banks and ford with the same
light brown. |
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A different yet still very exciting angle of the table so far! |
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A close up showing the next stage of highlights. I dry brush a
lighter gray over the cliffs and rocks, mostly working at the
highest points, as well as lightly go over random areas of the
dirt area to add variety in dirt color.
You can also see texture in the riverbed. After I painted the
cliffs and rocks with the paint/sand mix, I cleaned the brush out
by painting the riverbed area. This left a texture similar to the
dirt areas and suitable for a river bottom.
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Another exciting shot! |
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And another!
This time, I used an even lighter brown and applied a heavy dry
brush over the river banks, followed by another heavy dry brush of
an even lighter brown. Actually, more like a bone color. I
extended this color over the trail as well.
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I then sprayed the dirt areas with a 50/50 mix of white glue (Elmers,
PVA) and water and then hand sprinkled Woodland Scenics Green
Blended Turf. |
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Oh my, another angle... |
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I then started gluing Woodland Scenics clump foliage and Noch
tall field grass to various areas. |
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The rivers edge got a patch of tall grass.
I then sprayed various areas of the grassy field with the water
and glue mix and hand sprinkled more Blended turf, this time using
light green.
Various areas also got cover in summer blend static grass.
Mostly along the river bed and trails as well as a few other
areas.
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A close up showing the different shades and types of
grass.
The river opens up, presumably towards a lake...
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The table halves side by side and almost complete.
Using Lemax Birch trees (bought after Christmas) I added to the
table by placing the trees in various areas, concentrating most
along the river and then along the trail and finally near the
cliff edges.
The trees come glued to some rock bases, but I simply pulled
them off, exposing the wire frames at the base and pushed these
directly into through the sand, paint, foam table top.
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More angle loving |
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This picture and the one below show more color added to the
cliffs and rocks. Using the mid brown paint, I dry brushed areas
of rock to break up the all gray areas.
I also dry brushed along the rocks on the far right, creating a
trail in the rocks. This was also done along the whole cliff trail
too, of which most can't be seen in any of the photos so far.
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The trail leads off the right side of the table to a yet to be
built addition. That'll probably never happen |
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Here you can see the trail leading onto the cliffs a bit better.
This is the route Uncas takes to intercept Magua and to save
Alice...or not! |
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The first of the trees get put on the table. I used Woodland
Scenics pre-flocked deciduous trees that come with a separate plug
in base.
I built three tree bases, or areas of woods, by cutting
1/8" hard board into my desired shape and size. I varied the
level of the wood floor by adding other pieces of hard wood and
blended them in with the pink spackle.
I glued the tree bases to the wood base and then applied paint
and sand, per the rest of the table, to the wood base. Once dry, I
painted to match the dirt areas and sprinkled the various grasses
to the base.
I glued various bits of dead wood to the base to represent
fallen branches and then simply plugged the trees into their
individual bases.
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The individual trees were done in a similar manner. This time I
used Games Workshop 40mm clear round bases and plugged the trees
directly into the hole in the center of the base. Some slimming
down of the tree plug had to be done here, barely.
I then applied sand and paint and grass like the rest of the
table.
The trees in the 40mm round bases are glued to the base. The
trees on the larger wooded areas are removable for those large
handed individuals.
Here you can also see the water feature...
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More of the table with trees.
The trail leads from the far right of the table, through the
river and along the left table edge seen here. It then winds up
the rocky cliffs on the left and then along the cliffs all the way
to the right side of the table again. It then makes its way to the
infamous battle scene between Magua and Uncas and then finally
between Chingachgook and Magua, where magua gets worked by Uncas'
Pop.
If I just spoiled the ending for you, you really need to get
out more.
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There are only 48 trees on the table, not including the birch
trees. I bought 100 of them, but after doing all this, I never got
around to basing all the others. Some day I'll get to that,
probably in the same amount of time it took me to finally post
this article. |
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