I used black felt and an airbrush to make my space mats. I have 7 more cut and ready to roll so I'll have a whole galaxy at my fingertips!

Link: http://www.outpostzero.net/2015/05/making-space-mats-for-star-wars-armada.html

Uh... many of us don't even have airbrushes

I think they look really good. Great job! I'm not a big fan of felt as it tends to find a way to cling to my hand, and has resulted in models being tossed...

Do you find that the felt has a tendency to "pill" (make those little clingy balls) over use? I've considered buying blank mousemat material in black, or a variety of banner printing services for an Armada mat. I have two good 3x3 mats for X-Wing that look pretty decent together, but that's twice as much to carry around and... well, we're Star Wars and FFG geeks, do we really need a good reason to buy more stuff?

I am not a fabric expert so I have no idea if there's different kinds.. but I've had several felt mats for many years and have not experienced any pilling. But, maybe there's different types? No idea.

Just an idea for an alternative to an airbrush, many art stores will have a range of canned paints that would probably do the trick. Pick up some cheap black paper or card to practice on.

Stars can be done with a paper mask with a hole in it, make the first pass strong enough to make a solid(ish) circle, then pull the mask back a little way so that you get some overspray in the hole to feather the edges.

To create lens flare you cut a cross in the masking paper, then just give it a light spray.

Try contacting a sail canvas store, or sail maker. I am pretty sure they would have a scrap of 3x6 or 4x6 canvas laying around. You can then dye it black and airbrush it.

Canvas is heavier, tougher, and more amenable to allow the ships to slip on the surface rather than snag the bases.

Low cost denim would also works.

Both denim and canvas will also lay better as its heavier on the table.

I went with a cheap and easy cloth of 3x3 felt. Though, I think it would quite easy to make something a little nicer if you wanted changeable backdrops. A large sheet of black matte board, a roll of acetate to make it nice and glossy on top and then get a large scale image and print it in sections. The matte board you can buy or cut in sections, the acetate comes in the right dimensions and you get a ridiculous amount on the roll. And the printing should look fine once the margins are cut off and under the acetate. Also, I don't think it would take up that much room. The acetate can be rolled, same with the print outs, and the matte board stacked.

I think they look really good. Great job! I'm not a big fan of felt as it tends to find a way to cling to my hand, and has resulted in models being tossed...

Still haven't mastered retracting those climbing filaments eh Spider-Man?

step 1)download a image from nasa.com

step 2)edit that image to scale for whatever play area size you want.

step 3)save it as a pdf

step 4)have a vinyl banner print shop print it. Tell them no gromets, no scaling, and no hemming. You'll get a flat piece the right size.

I did this for my x-wing mats and they work great.

Canned paint. I'll throw up a how to for anyone interested.

Do you find that the felt has a tendency to "pill" (make those little clingy balls) over use? I've considered buying blank mousemat material in black, or a variety of banner printing services for an Armada mat. I have two good 3x3 mats for X-Wing that look pretty decent together, but that's twice as much to carry around and... well, we're Star Wars and FFG geeks, do we really need a good reason to buy more stuff?

The best I've found is vinyl or those office use presentation board. Get either and put a little wipe of tacky glue on the bottom of your bases and your ships don't slide around every time you tap them with a ruler. Mouse pads are lousy for that. Fantasy flight cautions against sickness in their tourney pdf, but their mats are terrible for that.

I'm working on doing some of these myself. Still working on prototypes to make sure I get my technique right.

Very nice work

My paints:

Liquidtex: Glow in the dark orange

Liquidtex: Parchment

Army Painter: Red

Army Painter: White

Tamiya: Black

Technique:

I cut out the template from some old plastic I had in the house. The main thing you are looking for is a shape that will provide a whole heap of different edges.

Pick and edge off the template and spray towards it so that the aiming point is just on the edge of the template. Holding the can at a 45 degree angle. A quick burst of paint will provide a nice clean edge and the paint will then feather out. You then move the template around so that you create a continuous solid edge going accross the board. Slowly building up a series of these in the orange, then adding the parchment, white and red to add some interesting variety to the work. Then adding some more orange as I felt looked interesting.

Once I was happy with the end result I sprayed the black around the edges to remove some of the overspray that got away from me.

I made a template with a very small 1-2mm wide cross and a circular hole in the middle, by starting at disance and prining the spray in quite fast I got those lense flare effects, but I wasn't overly happy with the results and just gave up.

For the stars I just put some white paint in a cup and by bringing my brush out so that the end flicked I just splattered paint at random.

At this point I had the nice colourful nebular framed in black, I then just very lightly added a few random puffs of the white. This just broke up the starkness of the black frame and added some more interesting effect.

An excellent thread -- beautiful home - brew mats. Better than store bought, I think.

I'm nearly done with mine (pics soon), and it hasn't been a horrible amount of work. Having an airbrush or two helps, but as Amanal demonstrated, they're not required. I can confirm that light from the camera flash does a good job penetrating, and makes the pictures look brighter than they actually are.

Canned paint. I'll throw up a how to for anyone interested.

My paints:

Liquidtex: Glow in the dark orange

Liquidtex: Parchment

Army Painter: Red

Army Painter: White

Tamiya: Black

Technique:

I cut out the template from some old plastic I had in the house. The main thing you are looking for is a shape that will provide a whole heap of different edges.

Pick and edge off the template and spray towards it so that the aiming point is just on the edge of the template. Holding the can at a 45 degree angle. A quick burst of paint will provide a nice clean edge and the paint will then feather out. You then move the template around so that you create a continuous solid edge going accross the board. Slowly building up a series of these in the orange, then adding the parchment, white and red to add some interesting variety to the work. Then adding some more orange as I felt looked interesting.

Once I was happy with the end result I sprayed the black around the edges to remove some of the overspray that got away from me.

I made a template with a very small 1-2mm wide cross and a circular hole in the middle, by starting at disance and prining the spray in quite fast I got those lense flare effects, but I wasn't overly happy with the results and just gave up.

For the stars I just put some white paint in a cup and by bringing my brush out so that the end flicked I just splattered paint at random.

At this point I had the nice colourful nebular framed in black, I then just very lightly added a few random puffs of the white. This just broke up the starkness of the black frame and added some more interesting effect.

Gorgeous work man.

Thanks.

Just an idea for an alternative to an airbrush, many art stores will have a range of canned paints that would probably do the trick. Pick up some cheap black paper or card to practice on.

Stars can be done with a paper mask with a hole in it, make the first pass strong enough to make a solid(ish) circle, then pull the mask back a little way so that you get some overspray in the hole to feather the edges.

To create lens flare you cut a cross in the masking paper, then just give it a light spray.

Your mat is beautiful, what is it made from?

I just got a black yoga mat. it has some texturing but I will be spraying it in the future to give it some character. The yoga mat should help with stuff sliding too.

Just made another one:

Black felt, I purchased 6 metres at a cloth shop. Which is enough for a second table.

Just made another one:

Nice!

I pretty much followed the steps that WWPDSteven did, with a few changes. I started by giving the felt (~$6 at Joann's) a good base of stars with an old head on my electric toothbrush and some Testors Aztek opaque white paint. The technique produced a very nice spray of stars, with most being small, but a few bigger. I cut out a template to mask an open area. I then did a 50/50 mix of Testors Aztek opaque dark gray and white, for the undertoning, which really helped on the black felt.

I decided to do a blue/purple nebula, based on the Triffid nebula, so I went with base colors of Spectra Tex midnight blue and Testors Aztek opaque purple. I did a couple more rounds of progressively lighter (== more white added). The seventh image shows the nebula finished with the template removed. The final step was to cut out some circle templates, and fix some of the star blobs to make them round.

I'll apologize in advance for the picture quality. The flash on my phone does a good job of penetrating the paint, and the mat is darker than it appears in the pictures.

http://eviloverlordx.deviantart.com/art/Mat1-Stars-534146280

http://eviloverlordx.deviantart.com/art/Mat2-Undercolor-534146701

http://eviloverlordx.deviantart.com/art/Mat3-Base-Colors-534146853

http://eviloverlordx.deviantart.com/art/Mat4-Colors2-534147201

http://eviloverlordx.deviantart.com/art/Mat5-Colors3-534147504

http://eviloverlordx.deviantart.com/art/Mat6-Final-Colors-534147762

http://eviloverlordx.deviantart.com/art/Mat7-No-Template-534148575

http://eviloverlordx.deviantart.com/art/Mat8-Fixed-Stars-534148695