Where we're going we need roads

A while ago I mentioned how useful two things I'd found in my local pound store would be for making roads. The first was black sandpaper and the second was vinyl tiling. Inevitably, I combined the two, and made a large quantity of double-sided, verge-less roads for 6/15mm. There's some diluted PVA on the "tarmac" side to ensure that I don't end up with black grit everywhere, and a light spray of grey to take the harshness off the black. On the other side, I applied some cheap varnish, then some weathering powders, then a matte varnish spray to give the stone roadways a bit of character. Here's a few shots of planning and the results.

Ruined adobe buildings for 28mm

Intention

Having made a bunch of adobe buildings for Middle Eastern/American/SF use, I wanted to round them out with a few abandoned ruined structures. Maybe the settlement fell on hard times as a result of the depredations of Space Calvera. Perhaps, as was formerly the case in Greece, incomplete buildings are not taxed. It used to be quite a striking feature of Greece, that: perfectly habitable (and inhabited) buildings with a notionally incomplete upper floor. Hardly the Parthenon, I agree.

Beginnings

I carved a few bases from cake board (£1 from my local pound shop), two small buildings and one mid-sized. I bevelled the edges, and coated them with a layer of UHU. Not coating them would have meant they'd have been warped later on. With some polystyrene offcuts and some foamboard, I created the perimeters of the buildings, gluing everything together with the hot glue gun. I put in a little rubble (not enough to impede the occupation of the buildings by soldiery) and something in the way of tall grass. I coated this all with dilute filler (hence the earlier application of UHU to the bevelled edges).

Painting

I applied a coat of the same cream paint I've been using since c. 2003, and suddenly realised I was on the brink of running out. Improvisation! So I applied some dilute washes of brown and black around the edges of the walls and on the walls themselves. Once they were dry, I began drybrushing the walls in progressively lighter shades, working my way up to white.

Finishing Touches

With the painting completed, I went a bit crazy with the flock. These dwellings were clearly abandoned a while back as the greenery (and brownery) suggests. I'm pleased with how these turned out, particularly the very exposed vantage point at the top of the stairs. Now I just need to find some paint to last me the next decade and a quarter.

Pound Store Vinyl Tiling Makes Great 15mm Stone Roadways

Vinyl Floor Tiles

As I said the other day, pound stores are an under-realised goldmine of assorted wargaming scenery. I spotted a pack of floor tiles in there the other day, and was thinking about using it for a river. More on that another day. What I noticed while cutting it up was the fine texture on the surface. Again, just in case your pound store has stuff in it that costs more than a pound (as mine weirdly does), these tiles come in a pack of four and that pack costs a quid. They are exactly 12" across (c.30.5cm), so it's easy to work out how many you'll need for a given project. They have a paper backing, which peels off to reveal an adhesive side. I recommend marking out your dimensions on the paper backing, and cutting them (carefully, naturally) with a knife rather than scissors.

Painting them up

I decided to just do a little test piece for now. So I nabbed a snippet, undercoated it with Halford's matte grey spraypaint, and then gave it a series of drybrushes. I prefer my stones not to be blankly grey, so atop the grey I drybrushed Citadel Dry Nurgling Green, then Citadel Layer Ushabti Bone, and very delicately Citadel Layer White Scar. Obviously, other colour combinations are available. This worked for me. As you can see, the wood effect on the sheet is rendered invisible by the grey undercoat.

The Simplest Wargaming Roads You Can Make

Pound stores are great

There's one of those pound stores near me, and they have all sort of goodies in them. All sorts of little cheap bits of stuff almost purpose-designed for the wargamer! The home-decorating-cum-DIY section of mine has cheap packs of disposable knives, glues, and today's groovy feature: black sandpaper.

Black sandpaper

Weirdly, not everything in my local pound store costs a pound, so to reassure you, this does. It's a pack of sixteen sheets of sandpaper with a variety of grits: 4 each of coarse, medium, fine and extra fine. The dimensions are 11 9/16" (27.8cm) by 9.1" (23.1cm). So for a pound, you could, if you were really efficient, cover an area of 111.2 by 92.4 cm, i.e. about a yard and a bit (a metre) a side.

Things you could do with black sandpaper

Make a modern road

The obvious thing to do with black sandpaper is to make modern (or far-future) tarmac roads. So grab yourself a ruler, pencil and scissors. Flip the sandpaper over, grab a vehicle, and decide what size you want your road to be, from motorway (highway, freeway, Autobahn, if you will) to sleepy country lane. Just measure out the width of the roads, and you can then cut the sheets up with scissors. Bob's your uncle. You can just lay it on the table, and it's good to go.

Make a city block or a town

Get yourself a bit of paper, and sketch out a rough plan with corners, straight sections, T-junctions and what have you. Save yourself hassle by grabbing your existing buildings, and using them when planning your (sub-)urban area.

Knocking it up a notch

Age your tarmac

The obvious thing to do is add a bit of weathering. Grab a brush you don't care about too much, and drybrush a spot of dark or medium grey onto the tarmac. Remember this is sandpaper, so it will pick up the paint very easily, so use a light touch.

 Add road markings

You can use what you have where you live or, if you'll be using this road for the future or SF settings, pick something totally different. White lines, yellow lines, red - down the middle of the road, at the edges. You can paint them on with a brush or use a stencil and spray them on.

 Base your roads

This sandpaper is cheap as anything, so if you choose not to base it, you won't really be losing out. That said, if you don't want to worry about the edges curling up or getting ragged, then you'll want to glue the sandpaper to a base. This will help keep it from getting damaged. Any basing material is fine. All I'd say is that if you haven't one this before, then do make a test piece first. The last thing you want, if you're trying to stop your roads from curling up over time, is to find out that your base is water soluble, and you've used diluted PVA, with the result that they curl up while drying.

Pavements 

If you're going to base the roads, you might want to add a pavement at the edges. This can also help protect the road from rough handling.

Road paraphernalia

Road signs, traffic lights, telegraph poles, bridges, railway crossings - there are all sorts of things you can do.

So what does this stuff look like? 

Here are a few pics of the pack I bought.

 
If you're wondering why this post looks so different, have a gander at this blog.