The beach boards

A board. Handily cut
to size by the nice man
at B&Q.

Everyone seemed very taken with the actual beach boards for Salute, so I shall explain. Nay, even demonstrate, as I have a spare bit of MDF and I want to do a promontory as a beach for Dux Britanniarum or similar.

You will need:

• A board - in my case 9mm MDF, 600mm square
• Paint
• Sea blue
• Sea green
• Brown/green
• Brown
• Textured stone/sand
• Sand-yellow
• PVA
• shingle mix (several shades of basing grit, ballast)

Cheap craft enamel...

And spray...

Start with the blue, and spray a line along the top edge, for about 10cm. I do this in a couple of passes, with the lowest one a bit further away so the edge feathers a bit.

Repeat with green. Again, the art is to make the two colours feather into one another a bit. As I'm leaving space for a promontory, I haven't gone the full width on this one.

More cheap craft enamel...

And spray...

These two sprays were enamel, so I left the result to dry for about 20 minutes, as the next two paints were acrylic.

In fact, they're PSC Army sprays, which turn out to be the perfect colours for nearing-the-shore water: specifically, British tank green and what Valejo would call English Uniform.

Take your pick....

And spray..

Again, spray in horizontal bands, trying to feather in between the colours.

Next step, allow to dry a bit again, then hit with the textured paint. 

Good old Rustoleum...

And spray, predictably
enough...

Again we've switched medium back to enamel, but the PSC paints dry pretty fast, so...

Of course, you could do this with PVA and a dusting of basing sand, but I'm really only about suggesting texture here. Also, my can of the Rustoleum decided to sputter and die part way through :D

AP Desert Yellow

All together now...!

Finally, a spray of a suitable sand shade over the stone texture - possibly leaving the odd gap so the paler stone colour shows through in patches. 

I haven't done the shingle because I need somehow to magic up some more shingle mix, which given how random its ingredients are, could be... interesting. Also I need to match up the edges with the other beach boards, which are still in the car at the bottom of the pile. The last step is some gloss varnish to add some reflections - I'm out, sadly. so that'll have to wait as well :D

I'm only really using what I have in the studio - Hobbycraft or similar probably could have provided a range of colour sprays that were cheaper than using up AP and PSC sprays, but the colours were right.

I don't claim to be Mal, the Terrain Tutor (subliminal message: pledge for his book), but frankly, this was so easy... if you wanted (and I might) you could add some incoming waves by texturing with PVA or one of the Woodland Scenics water compounds.

Next time AndyM is around, we'll dig this out, match it up with the other boards and cut some foam for the peninsula.

Till then, enjoy!