28mm Roads Tutorial

Hello Gamers!

I have finished up all my pictures for my big tutorial post! Each tutorial will be broken into a separate article, with a final showcase post showing them all together. First up is the roads. Commercial roads vary wildly in both price and quality. While there are a number of great pre-made roads out there the cost can be rather prohibitive for budget gamers like myself.

After much experimenting, I have found a system that works for me, which I will outline for you here.

Materials:

Cork Tiles - I get mine in packs of 5 from Wal Mart. They are 1 sq ft per tile, and cheap at 5 bucks. This tutorial used a single pack of cork tiles.

Razor Knife - You probably already own one, but if you don't go buy one for a dollar at a hardware store.

Ruler - Again, I assume you own one but for math purposes you can get them for 50 cents.

Flock - This tutorial used Earth Blend Blended Turf from Woodland Scenics. I used maybe 1/2 of the container so thats $2.75

Sand - I didn't pay for my sand (because it's free like everywhere on the ground) but you can get small bags of it at Michael's (or any craft store I assume) for 2 bucks.

Clump Foliage - This tutorial uses Dark Green and Light Green clump foliage from Woodland Scenics, which I will assume you already have, but if you don't a small bag will run you 4 bucks.

Let's total that up.

$15.25

That's a pretty low number for Terrain. How much does this get you is what you're going to be asking after seeing that. Here's what I got out of that $15.25:

x6 12" x 4" x 4" T sections
x3 8" x 4" Straights
x4 "Pie Pieces" (For making corners)
x12 12" x 4" Straights

That's roughly 20 feet of roads. I challenge you to find a commercial product with that kind of value. Now I know what you're going to say. "But Ethan how good do they look?" I'll let you decide after finishing the tutorial.

Step 1: Plan out your sections.

For ease of use and scale I made all my roads 4" wide. I got that number by measuring my tanks to eyeball what I thought was right. YMMV. If it helps you any, lay some figures out on the cork to get a better sense of how wide your road will be.

Step 2: At this point, you're going to cut them all out with your trusty razor knife. The Ruler you used to plan out your road sections will help here as well. Cutting along a ruler will keep your lines straighter.

Step 3: I should mention I spray painted my cork black, I honestly have no clue why, it is completely unnecessary. I think I was trying to test how well it took spray paint. Anyway, Run some pva glue along the edges of the road and smooth it out with your brush. Apply flocking and let dry.

Step 4: Once the flock is dry you may want to add another coat of flock. That is entirely optional and up to you however. Once you are satisfied with your flocking, put some pva down the middle of the road in a nice thick coat. You want some thickness here to help hold the sand in place. Apply the sand and let it stand for a while. Hold the road upside down (over whatever you are storing the sand in) and lightly tap to free excess sand. You may want to sand again once the first layer dries.

Step 5: This is the easiest part, and the fastest. Drybrush some brown over your sand and glue some clump foliage to the grassy areas of the road. I did mine sparsely since most of my terrain has clump foliage on it. You should end up with this:

That's it gamers. I knocked out all of this in a single afternoon and I'm quite chuffed with the result. Just wait until you see it in the big showcase post. If you have any questions/comments/concerns let me know here or on TMP and I will respond promptly. Thanks for reading and happy gaming!