Collins builds the world of the walking dead

I think I’m calling this board done at this point. It looks smart, has open areas that can be changed up for gameplay and lots of really interesting details.

For gameplay i’ll designate all the shrubs and stuff as flat ground, they are just there for my viewing pleasure, the trees however are there to slow walkers down as well as add interest.

I hope you’ve enjoyed watching this come together. I’ll be doing a batrep (or two) on it in the future. in the meantime, enjoy the show off artsy photo gallery.

All of this stuff was built/painted back in 2016/2017 when the game was in it’s early life. The most important thing to highlight in this is the turdis which is known in the community as ‘hobby bog 1’ as named by Warzan on an XLBS back in 2016… well, as you can see someone (not me) was inspired by Warren and made a Beasts of War Portaloo and posted on thingiverse for free! #flippingcool

The rest is either TTCombat or Mantic Games TWD scenery/objectives, all great stuff. bonus points for those that figure out the companies that the skips come from ‘in world’… the red skip was posted on twitter by a friend and the real person saw it and retweeted expressing how cool it was…sadly i cannot be bother to find the evidence, so you can either research it or disbelieve me haha.

On the note of skips, they come empty so what i did was fill them with cut up MDF sprue (from 4ground buildings…more on that another time 😉 ) and slapped a load of typhus corrosion paint in there for mud dirt and grime. the rolled up carpet was made from baby wipes dunked in a green wash and the excess drained off. all very simple but looks great as skips are never empty in the real world (except at the depot)

This entry is all about adding in the (previous) existence of humans. Mankind leaves behind it a trail of debris in terms of paper and plastic waste. an easy way for me to recreate this is to use the material produced and given away by people online (I can take no credit for this pdf).

I printed it off in black and white (I don’t have a colour printer unfortunately) and then tea stained it to age it and give the newspapers the unbleached off-white colour they normally have. for those that don’t know about tea staining, make a cup of tea, take the tea bag out before adding milk, and then drag it across the paper where you want it to go brown. the more passes you do the more brown it will stain the paper. very simple really.

To determine where the paper was going to go I did two things, firstly I added plastic to the big windows so it looks like there are actually windows, I drew cracks on using a permanent CD marker and then superglued on the missing posters.

The news papers were all cut up and placed on my hands and literally blown onto the board. where they landed is where they were glued with superglue. I did drop a load into the shop area so it kinda looked like they had fallen from the shelf but the key is randomness really which is why the blowing worked well on the outside spaces.

next up is to take this wonderfully technicolour world and turn it into black a white. enter a free app called Prisma and a filter called Heisenberg*.

its basically a one click way of turning photos into a graphic novel style extremely similar to the TWD comics.

*blue meth not part of the filter or additional in app purchases options

This step is all about breaking up and adding interest to the green areas, to do this I used 3 types of tuft that I (legit) happened to have in stock (I have a box of tufts and papercraft plants that I liked and picked up randomly)

Spikey Green (gamers grass)

wild (gamers grass)

moorland (games workshop no longer sold)

the GW ones I just stuck down  but the gamers grass ones needed a helping hand from some superglue

all the details are in these project entries

https://www.beastsofwar.com/project-entry/1662344/

https://www.beastsofwar.com/project-entry/1665216/

https://www.beastsofwar.com/project-entry/1670470/

However, the gist of it is, add mod podge to the branches of your woodland scenic armatures, use a static grass applicator to add 12mm long static grass in your colour of choosing. then wait for it to dry. spray with spray glue (recommend good stuff like 3M) and add 2mm short static grass through an applicator. finally seal it all down with home made matt scenic sealant (water, ISO and matt medium).

On the brown base paint I laid down a layer of PVA which had corse turf and fine turf (woodland scenics) sprinkled over it randomly but making sure to cover as much of the brown as possible.

To get the leaf litter I sprinkled over birch seeds, selectively placed mixed herbs (mostly on the joins and the corners of paving stones) and crushed up dried pine needles.

To seal it all down I spray watered down PVA over it all after pre-wetting with IPA. Takes a fair while to dry but does dry rock hard.

A few images of some run down or abandoned petrol stations, this gives you an idea of some over growth and the mess on the floor around the station in general which is key for the next weathering stage

first up I dry brushed some light grey house paint onto the tile grout then I took some of the old spray cans I had in my collection from model mates (now trading as ‘dirty down’) which are basically fabric dyes in spray cans used for the film and theatre industry to quickly weather props etc. and used them to add interesting changes in colour etc. I finished this by adding a small amount of clear lacquer as im worried about later steps reactivating the dye and moving it around when I don’t want it to. I’ll de-shine it later using matt varnish.

When removing the masking tape its got to be done carefully so not to ruin the tile grout asphalt/tarmac. some thicker sections did pull up as you can see so I covered them back over with a bit more weathering spray.

The grassy areas were painted brown so that when I put that down it won’t matter is small areas are missed

The most important part of the terrain element of this game is the living (or rather walking dead) element of it, the zombies, walkers, biters, freaks, whatever you wanna call them.

I painted 30 of these when the game came out using techniques of the time, namely base colours and army painter strong tone dip. the bases were done with crackle paste paint and green flocks and birch seeds. all very 2016.

I decided to bring a bit more life and change to these by clipping them all off their wargaming bases and putting them on clear acrylic bases (purchased from eBay fluid3dworkshop). this worked amazingly on my Imperial Assault models and also I’m hoping will allow the bases to disappear in the photography I have planned for this story board project.

I started by trying to add some height and 3D elements to the flat board.

In the TV show we see Rick walk down a semi steep embankment, steep embankments in this game would make for unplayable areas simply because models would fall off them so I took some license and made it a gradual hill.

the base was expanded foam glued down with gorilla glue (brown expanding glue) and then I slapped a bit of sculptamold on it (for reference, sculptamold has a really long full curing time, more so than home made plaster and paper mix) to smooth it out and make a nice gentle gradient for play.

The other heights I utilised a cork board that had some double sided sticky tape/sheeting on the back of it already. That made for nice simple cuts and sticks for a bit of hight. I glued on some cut up cardboard for the curb stone effects on the edges to make it look like its meant to be there.

finally I sieved some tile grout over the area destined to be tarmac. I would have preferred to use grey but I didn’t have any and didn’t want to spend £9 on another bag for a small area so I used white left over from my bathroom and then primed it grey.

I masked off the area where the garage will sit however so that I can still have a wood to wood bond when this is all done and I’m onto the blending stage.

I built and painted this petrol station back when the game was released but I have never actually used it in a game (criminal!)

It’s a TT-Combat product https://ttcombat.com/collections/city-scenics/products/dinogas-filling-station-deluxe

I primed it white, added red for detailing and then bathed it in green and brown washes, added tuffs and birch seeds for scatter and called it done

I really enjoyed the simplicity of this scene when Rick is on the way to Atlanta. Its got pretty obvious reasons for him going there and at a later date can be easily storied that a series of rival gangs are there for fuel or essential supplies (tools to fix cars, milk or flowers and chocolates for when you’ve annoyed your wife!)

The walking dead is played on 20″x20″ play surface.

Thats an abnormal size and is done deliberately to make everything feel a bit claustrophobic. I have played it before on 24″ x 24″ boards as they are much more standard at game stores (2 foot by 2 foot sections make for better breakdowns on normal board size) and it does affect gameplay by making there much more space to run around the zombies.

to make these 20×20 boards I took a trip to the DIY store. I decided to go with 3mm hardboard and 18x34mm battening. I went with those dimensions because that’s what they had on the shelf.

I made a conscious decision to go with 3mm hardboard rather than 6mm MDF because its lighter and they’re not that big so it doesn’t need to be that strong/sturdy.

https://www.diy.com/departments/brown-hardboard-l-1-22m-w-0-61m-t-3mm/1696235_BQ.prd

https://www.diy.com/departments/metsa-wood-smooth-planed-square-edge-whitewood-spruce-stick-timber-l-2-4m-w-34mm-t-18mm/1798338_BQ.prd

by the way, if you don’t have a nailgun… get one! they’re amazing!

They’re quite easy to make (when you have a nailgun!) and I did use PVA glue on every join / touch point to help keep everything bonded together.

I managed to knock 2 out of the materials I had ready to have some interesting scenes sculpted onto them.

I already have an idea for what my first board will be!