Realm of Battle Board - WIP part 1

Like any gamer who realizes that with a wife pregnant with twins his ability to hang out at the pub or game store will be impacted, I decided to remedy the situation by throwing money at it.  A few months back I purchased a large amount of terrain and a Realm of Battle Board in order to start turning my garage into my own private gaming den.  Having done a lot of research I decided to test out some options and finally set out a game plan.
Enter the Realm of Battle Board!
Initiating Operation: Home Field Advantage!
Things you will need to paint your realm of battle board:
1. Large working area w/ lots of light (I'm 50% there)
2. Painters Paper and Tape
3. Multiple 2" brushes - trust me it's so helpful when you are doing multiple colors and you don't have to rinse/dry/wring out a brush.
4. Cheap but good paints (Home Depot has some see comments later in post)
5. Paper plates for pallets
6. Good primer - also see comments later
7.  A lot of white glue or super glue
8.  Flock or Static Grass by the ton
9.  Porn
10. Extra batteries for your camera when it dies unexpectedly.
11. Paper towels

Step 1 - Wash the boards in the tub to get the packaging coating off.

I would recommend at this step to use a sponge as well.  Scrubbing the boards really helped get the coating off.









Step 2 - Lay out boards to dry after wiping the with towel (Also allows you time to set up your workstation downstairs)

As you can see I have 8 tiles laid out, I ordered the Realm of Battle Board expansion as well.










Step 3 - Set out your work area and tape down the painters paper on your work surface area.

As you can see I have laid out all 8 pieces over 3 folding tables.  I can not recommend the use of painters paper during this project.  Priming, flocking and just general ease of clean can not be overlooked.







Step 4 - Priming

 Ok - Insert Rant here:
First off - you should never skimp on good primer, regardless of the fact that it may cost you 15.00 a can.  I was a stupid asshat and decided to try to save money on primer and instead of doing research for a more viable option or asking friends; I went and bought The Armory - Black Primer.
Seriously - what a piece of crap primer.
1.  After testing proper distance on other surfaces, you have to be 9.5 inches away otherwise the primer dries too quickly in the air and ruins your surface.
2.  After priming the surface, the primer turned into fine dust and literally began to fall off the boards

and get every god damn where.
3.  As you can see the pictures to the left, I used up an entire can and had spotty, shitty coverage.
4.  Had I actually bought a good primer or one that doesn't turn into a can of compressed shit, I wouldn't have had to take the boards back up stairs and wash them in the bathtub AGAIN to get all the excess powdered primer off them before just getting irritated and basecoating it with Pure Black Behr paint.



Step 5 - Basecoating w/ Brown

Here is also where my camera batteries died so we switched to my camera phone.  I used Behr Expresso Brown to basecoast the Realm of Battle Board.  The paints I'm using during this project all came from Home Depot.  I went to their paint department, found colors I liked that were Acrylic and bought half-pint samples of the paint for 2.49 each.  Was a KILLER deal.

Anyway - I hope you can see the dark brown with the shitty light and picture.







Step 6 - Basecoating with Grey

Next I used the Grey paint to paint up the stone tiles and elevated areas.

Step 7 - Drybrushing 50/50 White/Black mix then 75/25 White/Black mix.

As you may see here, I have highlighted and drybrushed the stone work texture of the rock on the battlefield.  The next step and update will show the skulls painted and then the realm of battle board drybrushed with the bleached bone/ivory/parchment colors.





Thanks!