I’ve been housesitting a relative’s place since last week, which explains the lack of posts here, but we (my brother and I) have also taken advantage of access to working space to crank out a project we’ve talked about for several years – a good, big gaming mat!

I’ve done hills, trees, buildings and all sorts of scenery bits, but they’ve always been put on top of borrowed mats, a lot of which clashed with the scenery we’d built. The base is a 6 foot by nine foot canvas painter’s dropcloth from Home Depot; we then used latex caulking tinted with brown paint and scraped on thin, then dumped generous amounts of mixed Woodland Scenics flocking on top of that and pressed it down gently.

After the caulking dries (overnight), we shook the loose flock off and gathered it for re-use. The surviving flock seems pretty solidly attached, although we’re looking into some sort of fixative to solidify it. Spray adhesive or cheap, scent-free hairspray have been suggested; some experimentation might be in order. In the meantime, the mat is usable as-is!

I’ll do a proper tutorial-style posting when I’m home and on my own computer, but here’s two photos of the beast! The figure is a 28mm Artizan pulp heroine, chosen for her red dress so she stands out at least a bit on the huge green expanse!