Scourged Forest 2x3 Gaming Mat

What seems like a long, long time ago...I received some of these 6'x4' mats for my birthday (nope, not last year's). They're really good looking but the size makes them difficult to paint in my house. The only way I can do that is to put both of my large folding tables out together, push most of the living room furniture out of the way and try not to get paint on the floor. I've got my Broken Blacktop mat about halfway done...but that's not what I'm here to talk about today.

A few days ago I stopped in at Trilogy with the intent of picking up a Gale Force 9 mat for playing Star Trek: Attack Wing on. They were supposed to have gotten some in stock, and I was happy to find that the rumours were true. Looking around the shop a little more I saw that they had a "Scourged Forest" 2'x3' Zuzzy mat. I have a 6'x4' one, but since I've been playing a lot of Strange Aeons lately and all of my home-built scenery is of the grass-and-trees variety I decided to buy it.

The price was a fair bit higher than what you'd pay from the manufacturer direct. On the other hand, there is no need to pay for shipping, and Zuzzy is notorious for taking a long, long, long time to deliver the product. (Yes I'm speaking from experience.)

Anyway, I finally got a sunny afternoon and was able to finish painting this thing up. Here's a look at the whole mat all finished.

I didn't take any in-progress pictures, but I did try to keep track of what paints I used (I'm using cheap craft paints from Michael's). I figured if it turned out well, I'd know sort of how to reproduce it. If it turned out badly, I'd know what not to do.

Here's the basic recipe:

1) 2:1 mix of Forest Moss and Burnt Umber, mixed into a wash and applied liberally over the entire mat. This is the most time consuming part, because I had to wait overnight for the paint to dry. The result was very pleasing however, as the brown paint settled in the lowest areas leaving the higher spots a nice dark green.
2) Dry brushed the stones with Medium Gray
3) Painted the trees with Dark Brown and the exposed areas (where there was no bark) with Parchment.
4) Applied a wash of Burnt Umber onto the areas that looked like flattened grass or leaves.
5) 1:1 mix of Burnt Umber and Black on the broken ground. It looked like dried mud, but I didn't want to paint it that way, so I thought I'd aim for a stone / scree of some kind.
6) Applied a wash of GW Devlan Mud to all of the trees.
7) Put down a liberal dry brushing of Forest Moss on all of the grassy areas. I was careful to leave it a little patchy. I didn't want to cover up that nice base coat completely.
8) 1:1 mix of Burnt Umber and Burnt Sienna dry brushed onto the leaf areas.
9) Dry brushed the grass again with Grass Green. I paid a lot of attention to the highest areas this time.
10) Dry brushed Parchment on the leaf areas.
11) Heavy dry brushing of the stones with Dove Gray. Much lighter use of the same colour on the trees and leaf areas.

I might go back over it with a spray sealer of some kind, but at the moment I don't have one. I'm really happy with the results. The details on this mat (and the others I have) are excellent. If you want one though, I recommend trying to find one locally, rather than ordering direct.

I'll leave you with a couple shots of some of the detail areas.