Prefecture of Ryu board - WIP part 1

hi all

So a quick update WiP on my new board, this one is for my Prefecture of Ryu faction and will represent the inside of a Damiyo's palace/castle.  I must admit I'm struggling with this one a bit with regard to the interior of the building.  The game requires 25 - 50% terrain coverage, but the inside of Japanese buildings are traditionally quite spartan, this leaves me in a little bit of a pickle.  So over the next couple of weeks I'll have to put my thinking cap on.  Of course I do have my dividing walls that I produced last time and I have got some nice 3D printed statues and lanterns from Master Crafted Miniatures coming so hopefully I can get something sorted (note to self - plan more before you dive into a project half cocked....)

Anyway, what I've done so far is to take one of my last remaining artist canvas which measures 60cm x 60cm, just short of the 24" squared  requirement and add some wooden trim to it. with that done I lined the canvas with some corrugated cardboard in order to provide some strength.  I then took some paint I bought in Poundland and gave it a quick coat or three...

Once that was done I added the Poundland tiles to the board to represent the flooring, originally I had the idea to do the whole floor with coffee stirrers - can you imagine how long that would have taken!?!  So when Jez directed my attention to the tiles (4 for a £1) I was delighted.  The tiles are 12"x 12" so needed a little trim to fit and we end up with this...

A couple of the scenarios in the game require a corner deployment zone measuring 6 x 6" so I decided to make these as terrain pieces rather than just a boring square that I mark out, to this end I thought I would do them as either viewing platforms/balconies.

For the base of the piece and to lend a bit of strength to the piece I used some lengths of thick mdf that came as packaging for our new oven.  Cutting them to 12" lengths and adding the cut off to strengthen the joins I glued the mdf together with "no nails" which holds it brilliantly.

I then cut some foamboard to the shapes of supporting walls and added some wooden coffee stick bolsters that would hold the planking of the slopes in place.

using "no nails" to bond the walls and mdf I constructed this....

I then cut out the 6x6" deployment zone and glued that in place before using my old fave coffee sticks to the angled foamboard to form a slope.  I ummed and ahhed about putting in stairs but actually wanted a slope as its more practical and looks just as nice.

and with the balcony and trim in place, I just needed to paint it and put the flooring in for the platform.

Next up time to cut out a piece of floor tile for the platform.

I also painted the inner walls white and shaded them with some Agrax and drybrushed them white again.  The wood work I drybrushed in increasingly lighter greys, I decided to do this because there was no way I was going to be able to match the beams or planks to the floor tile colours so it was better to do something altogether different.  The outer walls I painted using the same "Rustic Red" as the trim on the board.  For some further decoration I drew some Kanji onto "aged" parchment representing the symbols for "Honour" "Integrity" "Dragon" etc, then using PritStik glued them to the walls.

So that's as far as I have got with the limited time I've had, I'm very pleased with the result, I have another one to build for the other corner and there will be more to come after Christmas.

I have had a very rare week off  which will include the big day itself, so it falls to me on behalf of the Nerd Herd and da Gobbo's Grotto to wish all of you, who have followed this blog and the exploits of the Nerd Herd a very Merry Christmas and may Santa bring you all the shiny new toys your heart desires, I'll catch you after the big day.

hope you enjoy
dGG