Making the Scenery
John has been kind enough to give us this master class on how he made the scenery for his games :
"The board was cut from mounting board to size 460mm x 760mm. I then drew some hexes (40mm across flats) on A4 paper using Lotus Freelance and printed out enough sheets to cover the mounting board. I cut around the hex edges before sticking them down with Spray Mount, so that I didn't have any paper edges going right through the middle of the hexes. Since the board was originally done for the Crimson Skies boardgame, this dictated the size of the board and the hexes (although I rounded the size down to a round figure).
Now the hard part! I cut some thin card into long 2mm wide strips and then cut these down into 15mm lengths (leaving me several hundred 2mm x 15mm strips). I then glued these onto the middle of each hex edge with Unibond so that the edges of each hex were clearly defined. This allowed me to define all of the edges clearly enough, but also meant I didn't have to be measuring exact hex sides and glueing precisely measured card strips from corner to corner! THIS WAS TIME CONSUMING and took me about five hours to stick all of the bits on, which I spread over the course of a week!
After that, I just sprayed it with Plastikote "Harbor Blue" and glued the mounting board onto a piece of foamboard cut to the same size to give it some rigidity.
I did the two coastline pieces and island in a similar manner. I printed some more Freelance hex sheets and cut the paper along the hex edges into the shapes that I wanted. I then glued these to some foamboard and cut the terrain out with a sharp knife, cutting to give an edge with a 45° slope to it and rounding off the hex corners. I cut some smaller hex pieces to glue over these to make raised contour hills. I then brushed Unibond onto the middle of each hex, leaving the edges and corners clear, and sprinkled on sand. I also left areas I wanted to be roads and dockside free from glue. Then it was a case of paint it all green and dry-brush yellow, painting in the roads with earth afterwards. The hex edges were clearly visible since they did not have a sand covering, but I decided to paint in the hex edges in a slightly darker green afterwards 'cause I'm daft like that!! It's not as time consuming as it sounds and I found it quite relaxing!
The only problem with the coastline bits is that the glue causes them to warp slightly. I put magnetic rubber around the edges and store them on a metal tray, which helps. If you're not worried about weight, marine ply cut with a jigsaw might be better."
