GUIDE BY SORASTRO

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In this PDF I’ll be sharing the approach I’ve been using to create some urban terrain tiles - broadly following the teachings of Mel the Ter-
rain Tutor (please see his “Making Urban Wargaming Boards” YouTube video).

I’m using MDF boards that are 9mm thick and 18 inches square. I’ve then cut some 5mm foam board to 365mm square and measured out
the paving stones which are 30mm square each, and there’s a 5mm wide curb. I’ve marked the lines with a biro, pressing hard enough to
create an indent. (And I created the curve by drawing round a coaster..!)

I’ve also lightly stippled on some thinned filler to add a little texture to the pavement. The boards might warp a little when doing this, but I
just bend them back (even if we get some slight cracking and creaking).
We can also cut along some of the edges of the paving stones and press them down to create some slight unevenness:
 Next I’m cutting strips of P80 grit sandpaper which is 93mm wide to form the roads:

You can see the extra little curved piece I need to fill the small gap that surrounds the curved part of the pavement:

I’ve glued the sandpaper down with PVA glue, and used masking tape to hold down the edges whilst it dries:
On this occasion I chose to spray the pavement before glueing it down, and first primed it in gray:

I then sprayed on some Stonewall Grey and Bonewhite to lighten things up a little:

You can see on this tile that I also cut a few cracks into some of the paving stones:
For the roads I first primed in Black, then created a gradient using the airbrush by mixing some Sombre Grey into some Black, then adding
increasing amounts of Bonewhite as we move towards what will be the centre of the road:

I’m now glueing the foamboard down using PVA glue:

 And I’m placing some weights on top whilst it dries to prevent the foambaord from warping or curling up:

Once dry we can add some crossing markings by masking off the surrouding area (using 10mm wide masking tape) and stippling on some
neat Ivory with a sponge (and/or a large, old brush):

Then peeling the tape off:

Here you can see the precise measurements I used. It’s quite fortuitous that things worked out so neatly, although there will be a slightly
larger gap in the last space where this tile will meet the neighbouring one (if things are measured with extreme accuracy it should techni-
cally be 12.2mm, but I just marked it as between 10-13mm):

For the yellow lines I placed a strip of 3mm wide masking tape along the edge of the board, then taped off a 5mm-wide gap:

The yellow I’m using here is Cadmium Yellow by Liquitex (heavy body acrylic):
And that’s it! I’ll still be adding some further weathering to the roads, plus a spray of matte varnish for protection, but these tiles are now
ready for development...

If you enjoy my work then do please consider supporting what I do at:

www.patreon.com/Sorastros
Thank you!