Genesis of a Demo Board

I finally got the bug.  After weeks of not picking up a paintbrush or a hobby knife, I finally broke down and forced myself to do it.  The great part is that I actually had a buddy over and he willingly helped, so the motivation was certainly injected from an outside source.  Regardless of why I finally did it, the fact that I did some hobbying made me proud.  And, of course, this should lead to more.  Much more.

I'm going to show off pictures of the stuff I started working on last night and then talk briefly about what I'm going to do about it.  This will eventually lead to pictures of this new terrain project being finished and posted up here, and will lead to me using it to recruit even more hobbyists

First comes the tabletop itself.  I have 5 display boards, but they're all 16"x20", and that's just too small for a proper demo game.  While I worked for the company, we moved from 4'x4' tables (way in the early 90's) to 2'x2' tables for our demo games.  And rummaging around, I found this perfectly-sized board in the workshop!  Yay!  Notice that it's already got a texture to it- this was achieved by priming and drybrushing the rough side of the hardboard.  The bottom (not seen in the pic for obvious reasons) is the smooth side, which is unnecessary for this.  The board, with its texture, is perfect to as the base of a city, which is altogether perfect for this sci-fi game...

I built some buildings many months ago (in fact, it was soon after my accident and I used this assembling to retrain my shattered arm.  Buildings are simple and fit that perfectly).

And I have three more kits to make more buildings.  I don't have any idea yet of what I would like to use for the demo board, but having too many buildings is better than not having any or enough.  Plus, this demo board will be modular and I plan to use whatever goes on this board on the main table also, when I feel the urge to rock some cityfight...

This kit was what got my buddy excited.  He had never seen it before and, after laying eyes upon it, ripped the box open and slapped the parts together.  After all, what good is an Imperial City (even in ruins) without a giant Space Marine statue?

While still working for the company, I had the urge to buy some Forgeworld models, and HQ didn't have anything I was terribly interested in.  So I found this crater set and grabbed it instead.  Paying far too much for it, I was proud to have craters that would grace my planned ruins table.  Funny enough, we released the plastic craters only a few weeks later.  I have them, but I needed to get these FW ones done for fear of forgetting that I had them.  If you look closely, you can see one of my favorite aspects of GW models ever- nothing but the feet of a Space Marine in the middle of a crater!  It's the little things...

Finally comes the 'bitz' for the battlefield.  Tank traps, barrels, gas cans, and a few other items shall add that extra something to the board, giving troops something other than windows to hide behind.  Again, it's the little things...

That's it for today.  I plan on doing some drybrushing, some 'rusting', and some other painting to get this stuff done soon.  My goal is to have a complete demo board done by next weekend.  Will I finish it?  A little motivation should see this happen, even if I start my new job this week.  After all, how long can it take to paint this stuff?  Stay tuned!

Happy hobbying!