Realm of Battle Workshop; The Great Gameboard Giveaway: Prize Revealed

On Monday I mentioned Warhammer World's first ever the Realm of Battle Workshop and announced 'The Great Gameboard Giveaway'. Here's the gist of what I said, in case you missed the post:

Warhammer World are just about to run their first ever Realm of Battle Workshop, where you get to paint and texture your very own gameboard over the course of a day. Intrigued, I've decided to have a go myself and have booked a special session for tomorrow. Now, as I already own two gameboards, and we've plenty here in the office I thought I'd give my finished gameboard away, in what I'm cheerfully calling 'The Great gameboard Giveaway'. So, to win yourself a Citadel Realm of Battle Gameboard all you have to do is email me a picture or two of a great-looking terrain piece that you've made and painted. The closing date is Friday the 3rd of September.

Blake Spence, from the Warhammer World Scenery Team, is one of the chaps who'll be running the Realm of Battle Workshop. So, on Tuesday I spent the day with him and under his expert tutelage, painted and textured a Realm of Battle Gameboard. To give you an idea of what you can expect from a Realm of Battle Workshop, I took plenty of pictures over the day. Throughout the day Blake revealed dozens of hobby tips to me and I've added some of them as captions under the images below. While right at the bottom you'll find the finished gamebaord - the prize for the competition.

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  When you attend the workshop, you've the choice of six styles for your gameboard, including desert, ash waste and snow. Blake has made samples of all six styles and after he showed me the one in the image I was sold.

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  When I showed up in the morning, Blake had undercoated the gameboard Chaos Black, and I found 18 pots of Scorched Brown paint and a Scenery Painting Pack waiting for me.

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  I used the Scorched Brown to basecoat the whole gameboard, while Blake looked on and occasionally mentioned that I'd 'missed a bit'. Thankfully, his advice got better.

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  Next I gave the gameboard a heavy drybrush using the brown paint from the Scenery Panting Pack (it's similar to Calthan Brown). The Paint Pack's packing works great as a paint tray. Blake recommends using cardboard to wipe your brush on before drybrushing - it soaks up loads of paint and wont stick to your brush like a paper towel might. If you click on the image you'll see the angle Blake suggests holding your brush at - this way you don't get brush strokes, while still picking up the texture of the gameboard.

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  Next, I gave the rocks and stony areas a heavy drybrush of Codex Grey. If you click on the image you'll notice I also added grey patches in amongst the brown areas. This helps to create a more natural-looking surface. As you'll see around the edges of the stony areas, I've lightly drybrushed some grey over the brown to blend the surfaces together.

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  I then lightly drybrushed the brown areas with the ochre paint from the Scenery Paint Set (you can use Tausept Ochre). Click on the image to see the ochre being blended into the grey.

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  Finally, the entire gameboard was drybrushed with Bleached Bone. On the rocks and stony areas this was a quite a heavy drybrush while on the brown areas it was much lighter. As well as adding a final highlight, this stage helps to bring the whole gameboard together.

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  The skulls and bones on the gameboard were then heavily drybrushed with Bleached Bone.

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  Finally, the skulls were washed with lots of Devlan Mud.

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  As part of the workshop you get lunch at Bugmans Bar, which gives you ample time to pick Blake's brain about all things scenic.

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  When you're adding Static Grass to a gameboard, Blake has a couple of tips: stipple on the PVA as it stops brushstrokes and gives a more random surface for the Static Grass to stick to. Also, use a lot of PVA. If you click on the image you'll notice what Blake calls 'bald batches and islands'. By spacing the areas of Static Grass out like this you'll get a more natural finish.

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  If you're adding two colours of Static Grass to your gameboard, add the one that you want less of first - this means you can be less careful when throwing on the more prominent colour. Blake suggests rubbing piles of Static Grass between your palms to break up any clumps and help it fall more evenly across the gameboard.

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  Once the Static Grass is on the gameboard, Blake recommends that you pat it down hard with your hands to ensure a firm bond.

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  Here's a look at the gameboard fully textured. If you click on the image you'll see how I got rid of the excess Static Grass.

Ta da! I'm really please with the finished gameboard and hopefully the competition winner will be too! If you fancy giving it a go yourself, and you're in the UK or Northern Europe then you can order a ticket for the upcoming Realm of Battle Workshop here. For those of you that can't make the workshop, I've added the products you'll need to do it at home, below.

In other news, we've just opened five new Hobby Centres: one in Bondi Sydney, Australia, one in Paderborn, Germany, and three more in the UK; in Boston, Lincolnshire; King's Lynn, Norfolk and Bury, Lancashire. If you're in the area, pop down and help celebrate the openings, I'm sure the managers are itching for a game.