I have a GW battle mat for rural/forest fights, but I wanted to do urban fights too. I wasn't sure how to make something that looked like good asphalt, but then I came across Krylon "Make it Stone!" spray paint:

http://www.krylon.com/products/make_it_stone_textured_paints/

I bought a couple cans of Black Granite Make it Stone paint, as well as some grey primer, and voila, it turned out quite well! It creates a nice, bumpy, textured look:

That sir, is freaking awesome! Did you dry-brush it as well, or just black make it stone, covered with grey primer?

I just primed my board grey, and then sprayed the spray paint over top of the primer. I added no effects - all the texture and colour variation comes just like that straight out of the can. It's that easy.

Nice… the only thing left to do now is find a way to do the same on your bases as well. It would make the Boss look all that much better if they matched the table (they look good right now though, but the bases matching the table just finishes them off).

Strombole said:

Cool idea, although then they wouldn't match my forest terrain! :-)

That is fantastic! you could also do bases by placing the base on wax paper and spraying with the primer then the asphalt-looking paint. I have got to try this stuff!!

madmaxknick50 said:

Yeah, there could be lots of uses. And if you just want more texture on something, you could spray it on and then paint over it with another colour and then drybrush it.

Also, it comes in a few different varieties that could be used for different kinds of terrain.

If you're going to use it for something large like a whole table like what I did, I highly recommend using a grey primer to start, so you don't have to worry about getting perfect coverage. otherwise you're probably going to need 4 cans to do a 6' x 4' table, which is pretty pricey as they come close to $10 a can.

Where did you buy it?

felkor said:

Time for urban renewal, just turn the forest into a parking lot with maybe a strip mall

MiniJunkie said:

I bought it at Canadian Tire. If you're not in Canada, I believe Krylon paints are a pretty easy-to-find brand. Their website has a store locator, and I think any home hardware store that sells paint has a good chance of carrying it.

For anyone who is interested, I'll lay out exactly what I did:

I have three 2' x 4' boards with white vaneer on them.

I used 2 cans of grey primer (I used Krylon grey primer for one can, ran out, and then used a can of more expensive but nicer Army Painter grey primer that I had.)

I covered the entire surface with the grey primer.

I waited about half an hour, and it was totally dry.

I used 2 cans of Krylon "Make it Stone!" Black Granite spray paint. I covered the whole surface pretty quickly. Because I used grey primer, I didn't have to worry about getting perfect coverage.

I then let it dry for 24 hours. The can says it should take 5-6 hours, but it's pretty humid right now, and I'd say it actually took about 12 hours to fully dry.

Then I used 2 cans of GW Purity Seal to seal it up (otherwise it can be scraped off a little too easily.) I'm sure you can use just about any varnish that suits your fancy, but I'd definitely recommend both primer and varnish because otherwise it will flake off.

And that's it. I love the results - makes it easy to make a really cool urban board.

Ya Baby, Crappy Tire! I love Canadian Tire… I even think I have a wad of Crappy Tire money somewhere too. I have a citadel realm of battle gaming table that is done up in a dirt and grass theme but I really want an urban table as well within scraping off the grass and starting over… plus, then I cannot use the table to play Lord of the Rings SBG. Then of course there is the issue of all my model bases for every different game are done in the rocks and grass theme, even my Star Wars minis, so I don't want to lose my grassy table. So my idea was to simply go down to Home depot or Rona and get 2' 2 slabs and make a new modular table with an urban theme. I like the idea of using this rock krylon spray as a starting point and then adding touches and craters to, etc. Toss on some buildings from the warzone tenement building set, some tank traps and some ruins from battlefield in a box and I have a quick and easy urban table.

Strombole said:

Haha, my boards just finished drying (just put in the purity seal this evening), and I just finished setting up a bit of terrain: craters, battlefield in a box ruins, Dust Tactics buildings (which I also just painted this week), tank traps, and then some Pegasus sandbags, barbed wire fences, and oil drums. Makes for a pretty sweet urban environment. Only a few months ago I had nothing, and now I can easily do a 4x6 forest/rural board as well as a 4x6 urban ruins board. I'm glad to see there's so many great terrain products out there - both ready-to-use and those of the more "crafty" variety.

If you're looking for where to buy it, check out this page:

http://www.krylon.com/locator/

As you'll see, it's very easy to find stuff (Home Depot, Walmart, K-Mart, etc. all carry it.)

You should post pics here of the finished table so I can check it out. I am on the fence right now on whether I want to make a modular table from scratch using 2 by 2 boards or just save all the time and effort and pick up a zuzzy mat for the base of my urban table

javascript:void(0);/*1339893817996*/

In the end I will pick what looks best rather than what is easiest so I would be interested to see what a krylon sprayed table looks like with terrain on it, etc., especially since you seem to have some terrain pieces that I also have.

Cool, I'm in Canada Ill check out CT.

Strombole said:

I took some pictures but am having trouble getting them to turn out in a way that gives an accurate idea of what it looks like. While I think it looks great, I'd say going with the zuzzy mat will end up looking better. Doing the zuzzy mat thing will be more expensive and more labour-intensive, but from the pics, I'd say assuming you're reasonably skilled at painting, the results from the zuzzy mat would be better. The main reason is that the Krylon spray creates a very uniform asphalt look. There's variation and texture, but it's fairly uniform. That said, you could certainly draw in some cracks, dirty areas, oily areas, etc., and make it look just as good or even better than the zuzzy mat, but that would depend on your skills (I'm fairly new to this painting stuff, so I'm just leaving it with the Krylon spray, but some day once my confidence has grown I'd like to add more details.)

On second thought - maybe you don't need to choose? You could buy the zuzzy mat and use the Krylon spray paint on it. A little bit of extra detailing, drybrushing, etc., and that would probably look pretty sweet!

For what it's worth, I bought a Zuzzy mat and never did anything with it. Once I looked it over, I knew ii'd be more work than the end product would be for me, and that was when I had far more time and painting patience. Can't remember if I resold it or if it's lying around in my den with my 4x8' Martian terrain board. I really like their hollowed out tree though.

I was considering ordering a mat from Europe that does a Phenominal textured look with their ocean mats, and their urban looks just as good in the photo, but between this method and the newly announced Deluxe DT/DW mats, I think I'll be saving on exorbitant shipping fees.

Strombole said:

I have never used or seen the Zuzzy mats, and they do look good, but they are latex.

Latex can cause allergic reactions in people and over time it will rot. It might take a few years, but it will start breaking down eventually.

I'm sure it will look great either way. Keep up the good work! I looked into the zuzzy mat simply out of laziness… well, more because I have too many projects on the go to get into a big undertaking like doing a whole new game table, especially when I have a fully done table already. But after seeing all the wonderful urban themed tables here, I just want a broken city table to play Dust on. My original table was built to accomodate different games that I was playing. So when you want to use your table to play games of 40k, fantasy, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars and Warmachine, grassed outdoor trees and water type tables are the best bet. 40k or Star Wars dudes could always land on a Jungle world like Catachan or on a planet like Yavin, Kasshyk or the moon of Endor, but it's a little harder sell to have Aragorn and Legolas walking on the moon or in a modern city. This is why I made the choice long ago to go rural.

Like I said, seeing urban tables made specifically for Dust on this site has left me green with envy and so now I want an urban table too without losing my "Middle Earth" table.

EDIT: Holy crap, in the time that I wrote this post there were two posts written before it and one after it…. You guys are all Speedy Gonzales and I feel like Senior Slowpoke! Of course I had to stop half way through writing the message because my Khador war dog fell apart and I had to quickly re-glue it and hold it together for 60 seconds… like I said, a lot of projects going at once.

felkor said:

Zuzzy recommends not to spray prime, as it'll crack. But I'll bet if you mounted to a board it'd be okay. I'm guessing the cracking comes from rolling and unrolling it.

https://plus.google.com/photos/106872914329241465780/albums/5737072015243234385?hl=en_US

My photo album has my Zuzzy mat broken city in it…

I just used a small paint roller and basic arycilic craft paints (apple barrel and americana colors) to paint it up…

the Flash really does a number on these pictures… when playing on it, the brinks and cracks don't look like Lava and you can't tell where I cleaned up the black near the cracks and brick areas like you can in these pictures, I am quite happy with it…

Took a couple of weekends, but I only worked on it for a bit at a time…

Good stuff, it looked like a fun game too. I think the table will look really good once the scenery is painted. I really like some of your scenery and ruins, once they are painted and the bases are done to match the table it should look great. Same goes for the models. Once they are all painted and based to match the table you will have a sweet little setup going.

You can also choose a different colour to paint the buildings to, these paints (and other manufacturers) do look good.