DeepWars gaming mat finished!

The canvas gaming mat has been finished!  It was pretty simple really.  To refresh your memory, I started the mat here.  After the acrylic had all dried and I was ready to continue, I gave the mat a generalized heavy drybrush of med-dark brown.  This made it look more earth-like and less pastel-like.  After that, to finish it off with a suitably-spooky ether-lighting effect, I did a light drybrush of some aqua blue.  Then I trimmed off the excess bits of canvas.

The finished mat:

A closeup of the texture:

Finally, the only painted mini I have that has any aquatic themes.  Suitably out of focus for this picture:

It's Fish-Head from the Mordheim Frenzied mob!  I hope you like it!  I am eager to get some DeepWars minis in a couple weeks, and to get some suitably aquatic terrain...

Speaking of which, Antimatter games is running another Kickstarter!  Their last campaign, to relaunch ShadowSea, fell just short of its goal, unfortunately :(  So, the fine folks at Antimatter decided to run another campaign to expand the miniatures range for DeepWars.  They started with a lower goal this time, and have well surpassed that, getting funding for many new miniatures!  As I type, they are just shy of 13k raised.  The coolest thing though, is if they make it to 30k, they will build this terrain:

A wrecked sub!  How cool is that, and massive too!  Only 5 days left though, so they need some more supporters!  Why don't you check it out, and pitch in too!  http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/524168246/deepwars-guardians-of-the-abyss-mini-kicker

Small Diversion

I recently got distracted from the painting of my Dux Britanniarum.  I assure you, I have some Saxons finished, they just aren't photographed yet :)

One of the online forums I frequent, warhammer-empire.com, runs an annual miniature exchange.  I participated this year for the third time in a row.  For my recipient this year, I decided to paint up not one, but two miniatures to match his army theme of purple and  yellow.  I decided he needed a nice, stately captain - well suited by an old Empire Reiksguard foot knight captain!  To accompany him, none other than a stalwart halfilng would do!  It was a great opportunity to paint another lovely White Knight miniature, as well as some classic Empire goodness.  Onto some pictures!

The duo:

And some closeups of the Captain:

 

Finally, some closeups of his tiny compatriot:

I had lots of fun painting these guys, so I hope you enjoy them!  They are on their way across the ocean to their new home, here is to hoping they make it there safely.

DeepWars by Antimatter Games

So in addition to my Arthurian project, I have taken on another distraction - DeepWars.  I am getting a starter set later this month, and have downloaded the rules from the antimatter website

DeepWars, and its sister game ShadowSea (which, incidentally is on Kickstarter right now: link) are based in an alternate reality of Earth where, in the 17th Century, a fantastic subterran continent is discovered beneath Antarctica, filled with treasures and mystical artifacts.  DeepWars takes place underwater in the subterran oceans.  The game has a nice mix of fantasy, steampunk, and Cthulu type intrigue.  It was their dark mariners that got me interested in the game:

In anticipation of my starter set (I chose the scaly horde), I decided to make a custom gaming mat.  I recently saw a tutorial (link) of making one with canvas, sand, paint, and acrylic caulking.  I wanted to capture the eerie abyssal feel of the game, so I came up with a few test colours:

For a mat, I used a canvas painting dropcloth from home depot.  This one was 4x12 and cut to make a 4x4 mat. It won't quite be 4' long at the end due to the shrinkage, but will be mostly 4x4. Nobody plays on the table edge anyway...

I wanted to do 3 base colours - some purple, deep blue, and green.  I got craft paint from Michaels, and bought a bag of playsand from Home Depot, along with their DAP acrylic caulking that contains a bit of silicone.  I found the playsand was too fine, so in addition to the playsand, I  mixed in some small gravel donated from the side of the road at the end of my driveway.  Here is the setup before I got started:

 Here are some pictures of the wet board:

Here are some pictures of the board today.  It is mostly dry, but there are still some soft spots:

What are those tiny coloured bits?  I bought some small craft shells from Michaels and scattered a few to make it more 'bottom of the ocean-ish'.  Currently, I would agree with your thoughts that the colours are a tad too bright and garish.  My plans from here are to drybrush brown over most of the mat, followed by a light, scattered drybrush of aqua green/blue.  I am also considering doing a wash of dark brown to add some shading, but I am unsure as to how well that will work.  Washes work well on sand bases, but this is more of a paste, so I think it might end up pooling and looking odd.  Any suggestions?