How to Paint Your Gaming Mat

A tutorial by James Hubbs

If you've recently acquired one of our new Terra-Flex mats you may be wondering what to paint a latex rubber mat with. And, after it's painted, can it be rolled up again or will the paint flake off?

Well, in this tutorial I am going to show you how to paint your mat using ordinary acrylic paints. Acrylic paint adheres admirably to the latex rubber and is very flexible. Furthermore, the painted mat can be repeatedly rolled and unrolled without any flaking or chipping.

Materials: 

ZUZZY™ Terra-Flex™ mat
acrylic paint
paint brush
water
mixing palette
newspaper
paper towels

Lay out the unpainted mat on newspaper

Mix your color

For the "Broken Earth" sections I'll be mixing burnt sienna and cadmium red acrylic paint along with a little water so it will flow well. If you're using hobby paints like those made by Games Workshop or Vallejo, you probably won't need to add water. 

Scumbling the paint on

 I apply the paint using a technique called scumbling. A small amount of paint, slightly more than you would use for dry-brushing, is loaded onto my brush. Then I dab it onto the area to be painted, applying a very thin, semi-opaque, layer. I make sure to apply the paint unevenly so that it gives a sort of marbled effect.

The scumbling completed.

Mix in some white

Now I add some white to the color.

Brush off excess paint

I'll be dry-brushing with this color, so I brush off most of the paint on a paper towel.

Dry-brushing

I pull the brush lightly across the surface, hitting only the highest spots with the color.

The dry-brushing completed

Mixing the color wash

Now I mix the original color again. But now I add lots of water to the mixture. And apply liberally.

Applying the color wash

Applying the black wash

After the color wash has thoroughly dried, I mix up some Black Wash. To make Black Wash fill a jar with about an inch of water, then add black paint. You'll know you've added enough black when you can see the black in the water when you brush it up the inside wall of the jar. When you apply the Black Wash it should darken the shadows, but not darken the highlights too much.

The completed black wash

Mixing up the highlight color

To finish the Broken Earth section of the mat I'll dry-brush a final highlighting onto it. I mix up the original color but I add some cadmium yellow to brighten it up a bit.

Dry-brushing the highlights on

The completed "Broken Earth" sections

 The Broken Earth sections are now complete.

Brush off the excess

For the sulfur flows and rocks that remain I'll do some simple dry-brushing. I mix up a medium grey and apply it.

The first grey dry-brushing completed

Dry-brush a lighter grey

After the medium grey has thoroughly dried I mix a lighter grey and apply the final dry-brushing.

The completed battle mat

Well, that's it. Painting your ZUZZY Terra-Flex mat is really not that hard to do. If you wanted to make things simpler, you could even dispense with the washes and scumbling and simply paint the entire mat using the dry-brush technique alone and have a nice looking game mat. Optionally, you could also apply a very light coat of acrylic sealant for added protection.