As I mentioned in the previous post, I started working on a new, 3d pitch for Blood Bowl. To my surprise I’ve already finished it. No, seriously! I’ve actually completed a miniatures-related project in short order, go me!
What follows is a quick tutorialish look at the process. I built the pitch mostly following CoG’s example. I’m a firm believer in recycling old stuff, and I’m happy to report that I didn’t really need to spend a lot of money on this project.
My first step was cutting up an old leftoverf piece of blue foam sheet. There was a slight problem with this, as the piece wasn’t completely symmetric and was a few millimetres too narrow at one end. I simply chose to accept that this would lead to some wonky lines, but was better than having to ditch the piece and needing to cut a new one. In case you wandered on to this post looking for the pitch dimensions, I made the squares 29mm, with the pitch being 26 by 15 squares including the endzones. I used masking tape to tidy up the board edges.
The sheet was then painted using cheap craft store acrylics and a large paintbrush and left to dry for a good while.
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When the paint was dry, I sprayed the board with a thin mixture of water and PVA glue and chucked on a variety of flocks. I left the board to dry for a fair few hours (5-6 probably) and then, using a large brush, dappled a similar thinned down PVA over the whole board to seal the flock. I then left the board to dry overnight.
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With the board dry I painted in some splashes of blood – this is Blood Bowl, you know. I then stuck pushpins at regular intervals along all edges of the pitch to mark the squares. At this point I was reminded of the fact that the field was asymmetrical indeed, and I had to do some fudging to make the squares work and fit. This naturally led to some very…interesting squares, but it’s nothing too serious.
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After sticking the pins in, I connected the pins with string length- and breadthwise to make a square grid. This grid was then used to mark the corners of the pitch squares.
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After that there was only the dreary, dreary task of painting in the pitch lines and the little crosses denoting the square corners. As a finishing touch I painted the edges of the board with cheap black acrylic paint. The finished table is shown below. And no, it’s not that askew, the photo angle is to blame!
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Even with all its little flaws, I’m still very happy about my work on the board for several reasons. First and foremost is that I actually made it, instead of starting work on it and then half-finishing it and sticking it in a closet. It’s now finished, and I don’t have to do anything to it anymore. Second is that I managed to use some of the old stuff I already had lying around instead of buying a lot of new. Third is that it actually looks pretty neat, and I can’t wait to get some gaming done on it.
So there you go! With a serious Blood Bowl heat going on, I’ll probably next tell you about my new, low-cost team. That’s a topic for another post, though.
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