"Playing surface color, brown or blue?" Topic

I got into ACW Ironclads after finding some STL's to print on Thingiverse. I bought a plastic brown table cover but a son of the South did say it was too brown. I see how Mobile bay and on up the Mississippi are brown but not THAT brown. What are all of you doing?

I flew from Florida to Utah, looking out the window most of the way, and the navigable rivers seemed to be brown. My ships had little bases, so I started painting them brown. It looked like the sips had run aground on a mud bar! So, I switched to blue for the bases and a blue river for them to sail on.

Grelber

Blue for bays and ocean, brown for ACW rivers, clear acrylic for ship's bases.

That's just me aiming for platonic ideals. The truth is that rivers can be blue, brown, green, gray, or any of the other colors of water, depending on a lot of factors. You do whatever looks "right" to you. If I make rivers for a snowy winter scene, I'll probably make it a dark, near-black gray-green.

I played in some of Dave Brandon's own games of Sail & Steam Navies; I thought he had some of the best-looking ACW naval games I've ever seen, and he used brown vinyl as the river surface. I haven't gotten around to riverine gaming yet, but when I do, I'll follow his lead. The muddy brown color just gives more of a feel of Eastern and Southern American rivers.

- Ix

The problem is that our brains were conditioned from a very young age that water is BLUE. The streams I could see from the train window as I travelled to work looked dark green. So I painted some river terrain pieces with the water a dark green colour. The trouble was that they just looked wrong. Not like water at all. Painted them blue and immediately my brain said "water". Go figure.

This can be a matter of adjusting your brain to accept the color as water, or adding aesthetic cues to the "water" to make it look more like water. Or both.

I made a set of modular brown rivers for ACW gaming by spray-painting dark muddy brown on acetate. I put the painted side down, so the brown is underneath a shiny layer of reflecting clear surface, then add lichen, trees, and rocks to the banks. I also find it helps the illusion immensely if the river runs along a valley between hills, or meanders through a low flat area between raised plateaus, but those aren't always called for on the battlefield.

- Ix

I think that the shiny is the key. Otherwise, it's just mud.

Water for bases, I do an under coat of Azure (UK WW2 color) and then put a gloss wash over it. Brown for rivers dark green for ocean. My table cover is darkish blue felt. I have been looking for a better table cover.

I formerly to used trash-bag green. Then they started making my water in black and white only.

I saw one set of rues using fresh water rivers. They used different colors to designate different depths. Brown was used for water too shallow or being sand bars. Green was common. Blue was used for special water features such as fast currents or rapids.

For inland waters I lay my plastic light covers over a brownish green mat. Open water bluish green. Usually felt.