NOVA Bound: Display Board First Steps

Last night I got started on my display board. To boil down my pretty terrible clip-art shape sketch, the plan is to have the Mawloc's road in one corner at an angle, with a tiled path set back from the road which my Tervigon, Trygon, and Flyrant will be crossing. The road will be bordered by green grass that is quickly dying before the advance of the Swarmlord. On to the project!

I started with a 2'x2' 1" thick polystyrene sheet. This will form the base. So long as I have time, I'm planning on making a frame from lattice wood that is slightly taller than the foam to increase resilience and keep little gribblies from rolling off while moving the board.

I started by cutting a triangle from a cork board, as well as a very slightly larger triangle from foam board - I wanted to make the road a little higher than just the thickness of the cork itself. From there I added glue along the edge and put a bunch of aquarium gravel pebbles along the edge to indicate a raised embankment.

Next I cut a bunch of approximately 1" squares from model boxes and glued these down in a path of 4 squares wide. I also decided I would have a statue made from an Inquisitor scale Imperial Guardsman, so made a bit of an offshoot from the path for him.

Once the tiles were glued down, I painted over them with regular house paint to help hold them down. The paint was also globbed over the gravel to help the glue, and to base coat the road. Then I mixed sand into the paint to add texture and coated the rest of the board.

The brush left clear brushstrokes in the paint, so I used a scrap of foam in the picture above to break up those lines. This essentially was like a sponging effort.

From there, I moved on to the statue. I assembled the Guardsmen with his lasgun raised, a grenade in his hand, and a gas mask (since I've decided this planet is a quasi-toxic world). I built the base from a 2"x2" piece of foam, which I put pieces of plasticard over, with a thick piece slightly overhanging for the top.

The finishing touch will be a plaque, which I will paint to read either "DUTY" or "SACRIFICE," keeping the fact that the guardsman is holding an (unpinned) grenade. Seems to fit Grimdarkness in my mind.

My last step for the night was adding another coat of sand/paint to the board to get the texture a little thicker.

Tonight I hope to drybrush everything but the tiles, prime and possibly paint the statue, and if I'm really ambitious, move on to adding the static grass - though I might need to pick up some more Green grass.

Now for the updated task list, not much has changed:

Must Complete:

1. Mawloc Project 
2. Paint 8 Devourer Termagants
3. Paint 18 Termagants
4. Paint 10 Hormagaunts
1. 75% Complete
5. Paint 2 Zoanthropes
6. Paint 2 Biovores
7. Display Board
1. 33% Complete

Stretch Goals:

1. Repaint 15 Termagants
2. Repaint 10-15 Hormagaunts
3. Model and Paint 1+ Mycetic Spore
4. Doom of Malan'tai Conversion
5. 4 Hive Guard (a recent article makes me almost want to bump these guys onto my list)
6. 1 Zoanthrope
7. Repaint 1 Biovore