Down by the sea shore
It occurred to me that in several situations having a shoreline in a game would be useful. Viking longships landing, special ops rafts, just decorative, etc. Doing that normally takes either a dedicated board, or creative use of scatter terrain along a straight blue edge. Those work, but I thought I could do better.
I figured I could make a caulk mat, but skinny and uneven, that I could use as a shoreline. That way I could drop it onto any terrain mat I already have, and boom, shoreline. So I started it the same as any caulk mat, but no sand for texture this time.
I was also more careful with the impressions left behind, and purposely smoothed the caulk into waves heading for shore. This was just done by gloved hand, pushing the caulk into a ridge.
Once dry, it was time to paint it. This was a difficult choice, since oceans all look different depending on where you are. The Mediterranean is quite blue, the Caribbean is teal, and the north waters are dark. In the end I wanted to use it for all those things, so I stopped caring abut that and just started painting it. I went all Bob Ross on it, just painting and blending wherever, no particular plan. Green towards the shore edge, and progressively darker blue toward the back.
Swirl it to feather the edges. Whatever you do will be fine, just don't leave hard edges of color transitions, and it works out great.
Then I went back and did a drybrush of off white on the wave peaks. Personally, I find actual straight white to be too white, and kind of jarring when seen, so I prefer to use a slightly off white instead.
Once the white had dried, I painted the mat with two coats of Pledge to give it that high gloss shine.
You know it's working when you can't figure out why it hasn't dried yet, but it actually has, and it just looks wet because of the gloss.
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| Oohh, shiny! |
Then I cut out the mat from the canvas. I painted and caulked "outside the lines" so I wouldn't have to worry much about trimming right on the perfect place or anything. I just cut it out where I wanted it.
And there it is. I dropped it on the snow mat for a photo since that's what I had in the garage. But it will obviously work on any other mat. Desert, grass, whatever.
And when I'm not using it, it rolls up just like any other caulk mat for storage.
Gotta admit to being kinda proud of this one.
Completely unrelated: Painting a coat of the Pledge on the rivers really helps. It doesn't do a huge amount for shine, though multiple coats might do that, but it covers the natural grip (or stickyness) of the caulk.
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