MOVEMENT TRAY TUTORIAL - Part 1

After a couple of request asking how I did my bases etc.. I came up with this, I hope you find it useful.

What you will need:

Thick/stiff card around 3mm. I get mine from the local art supplies shop, usually plain grey.
Superglue
PVA Glue
Modelling Sand
Small Stones (I get mine from the garden)
Small Slate Pieces
Craft Knife
Metal Ruler
An Old Drybrush
Hairspray (yes.. hairspray)
Static Grass

I always wait until I either need to make more than two movement trays or if I'm just in the mood to make some more in advance as it's quite a process to go through just to make one tray!

The first step is to measure the area of your unit i.e. across the front rank and along the sides.
All my units are 5 ranks across and 4 deep on 20mm bases, which gives an area of 100mm x 80mm.
Don't forget the border so add on another 5mm to all the sides.
So for a 5 x 4 unit you should end up with an area of 110mm x 90mm.

Next mark out the areas onto your card (I find a right angle set square very handy here) and then mark out a couple of 5mm strips along the longest side to make the borders.

Cut everything out with a very sharp knife and a metal ruler.

Glue the front 5mm border along the entire length of the front of the tray with superglue. You can either measure out a 110mm strip and then glue to the tray or glue the whole strip and cut off the excess.

Then do the same with the sides. I don't bother with a rear border as this tends to warp the card.

Next pour out some of the PVA Glue onto an old jar lid for ease of access.
Then taking your old drybrush or I use an old sculpting tool to apply the PVA Glue to the borders of the tray. Try not to get too much on what will be the inside of the border or the underside.

Dip the borders of the tray into the sand.

Place the tray into a spare box (shoe box lids do a great job!)

Then pour the remainder of the sand until the tray has a thick covering and then leave it like that to dry for a couple of hours or over night.

Lift out the tray and give it a couple of taps to remove the excess sand. You may get some sand sticking to the underside of the tray or on the inside of the borders, remove this by scraping along the bottom of the tray with a craft knife.

Pour out some PVA Glue onto the lid again. If the the tray is dry fix on the small stones or slate pieces onto the smoothest areas of the border using neat PVA Glue. Once your are happy add some water to the PVA Glue and apply a coating of glue over the existing sand, not the stones or slate.

Dip in the sand and then cover the tray as above. This covers up any areas you missed with the first stage and also evens things out and it looks better! Leave to dry.

After a couple of hours or so tap off the excess sand again and scrape off any excess on the underside or inside of the borders.

Next holding the tray at the rear cover the all the sand with a couple of bursts of hairspray and leave to dry.

The hairspray acts as a seal and prevents the sand coming off when handling it, plus you can paint over the top of it. Once the hairspray dries off you can prime it ready for painting, or if you're impatient like me start with the basecoat.

Coming soon in Part 2:

Painting the tray and applying Static Grass

Now for Part 2

Painting

This will be obviously be down to personal preference here depending on your existing base colour scheme.

I use a mix of watered down "I swear too much" Brown, Scorched Brown (70:30) as the base coat.

Highlight by drybrushing with neat Khemri Brown. Then drybrushing again with a mix of Khemri Brown and Dheneb Stone (50:50) or there abouts depending on how light you want it to look.

Paint the stones and slate with Codex Grey as the base coat.

Highlight the stones by drybrushing with Fortress Grey. Then drybrushing again with a mix of Fortress Grey and Skull White (50:50) or there abouts depending on how light you want it to look.

I use the same process on the bases of my dwarfs but found that it's easier to paint the basecoat of the boots/feet and then doing the sand. This is because sometimes the drybrush leaves a little paint on the mini and could ruin you fantastic paint job. Doing it the sand first way can be rectified with another quick basecoat.

Static Grass

Again this is down to personal preference.

I use three shades mixed in various quantities giving a light, medium and dark shade that I keep mixed in smaller pots.

Light Shade is Scorched Grass with added Dead Grass. Add more Dead Grass to lighten if needed.

Medium Shade is plain Scorched Grass.

Dark Shade is Scorched Grass with added Burnt Grass. Add more Burnt Grass to darken.

Take your painted movement tray spot-on some PVA Glue with your old drybrush.

Pinch the static grass with the tweezers...

and tap off the excess. You should see loads of strands of grass pointing towards the floor, what you need to do is place the tips of the strands into the the PVA Glue.

This helps it stand up and give the tufty effect. Tap off the excess back into the pot. Then blow semi-gently across the top of the grass also helps to stand up.

You can then apply more spots of glue and use different shades of grass around the border of the tray.

So there you have it. As I said it's all down to personal preference, what static grass you have, what paints you have or what you find to use for stones. Experiment with different shades until you come up with what you like. Even if your units have differing colour schemes having the same bases and movement trays can add cohesion to the army giving you pleasing results.

If your army is already based, I'm sure you can adapt the guide to fit in with your existing bases.

Try it and see!

Cheers,

Iain