Painting hexes on terrain

[curseyoukhan]

I'm looking for something I can use as a stencil to paint the hexes on a big model ( the Pegasus Technobridge -- http://www.nobleknight.com/imagepage.asp?image=PEG4921.jpg&name=Technobridge%20(28mm)

I'd rather not put down one hex, trace it and again and again ... any suggestions?

[Will T]

I think stenciling on an uneven/textured surface on that would be tough. Maybe cut a sponge into a appropriately shaped hex and use it to "stamp" the hex pattern onto the bridge?

[curseyoukhan]

oooh, good idea. Maybe I could make a "stamp" out of sculpey. THNX.

[srmalloy]

It would be fiddly to cut out, but Cumberland Games and Diversions has a set of fonts ($3) for making mapsheets, one of which is an open-corner hexmap font (rightmost in the image below; I don't have it on the computer at work, or I could give you a better sample):


If you made up a document in WordPad or in a graphics editor like Paint Shop Pro using this font to get hexes to match the size of a HeroScape hex, you could take a craft knife (Xacto, etc.) and cut out the bars of the hexmap (leaving the corners to hold the paper together) and use this as a stencil to spray the hex borders on the bridge surface (if you wanted to get a little fancier, get a package of the uncut letter-size label material, so that after you cut out the hexside bars, you could peel the sheet off the backing and stick it to your bridge surface to get a cleaner stencilling of the hex bars.

[Lotus]

You could make the hexes using a cad program and do the same thing, or perhaps use Autorealm, which has the ability to make a grid in whatever size you want.

[curseyoukhan]

more great ideas. I like the idea of creating my own stencil sheet.

[millermixture]

I like the CAD & Photoshop idea. Try printing it on an Avery sticker sheet use it as a mask/stencil. Also check out this site you may find it useful: http://www.incompetech.com/graphpaper/hexagonal/

[srmalloy]

The advantage of using an interrupted-corner hex like the ones in the font from Cumberland Games is that it gives you a consistent mark for cutting the bars for the hex sides without cutting the paper into pieces; if you have a normal hex pattern that goes all the way to the corners, then you will cut your stencil into separate pieces when you cut out the lines, or have to eyeball where the breaks go. The hexpaper font limits the bars for the hex sides automatically:

[curseyoukhan]

yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking. That can be turned into a stencil very very easily