Display Case Flooring

(or Is there such a thing as too much supporting detail?)

Currently my armies reside in a two-part display case that also serves to support a printer, scanner and Network Storage.  I really don't have room in my current space for a large mutli-tier transparent case, and to be honest, I don't think I'd fill one, anyway!


But what does bother me is seeing my armies on the wood shelves, sitting there like a collection of miniatures, not an army on display!  So to remedy this, I decided to build a "sound-stage" of terrain that wouldn't reduce the display area significantly, while giving a bit of background to the display area. (and hiding some wires, cable pass throughs, etc...)

The first part of the build is to give some flooring to the case that reinforces the 40k theme.  Unfortunately I have a few different base styles between my armies, so I probably won't be able to make one coherent display area that matches the armies bases... but who knows.  So to cover the most amount of area, I opted for 12x12 cork tiles with an inset of diamond-pattern non-skid.

I first made the cutouts in an upper tile to inset the plates in.  There is always a bit of cutting and fitting each on in perfectly, so I numbered each plate to match each inset, preventing frustration later on!

 After gluing each of the upper tiles to a lower tile, they were ready for painting, so I turned to the inset plates.

The plates were spray painted a basic silver, as I hit them afterwards with a good amount of the Dark Tone wash from Army Painter.

The tiles were sprayed with a black basecoat, ensuring that the numbers were still visible, and the edges of the tile given an even coat.

That was then followed by the 3-color scheme that I used for my Imperial Fist bases and Gothic terrain.

Now the numbering scheme becomes apparent!!  This way I wouldn't lose my mind trying to get the plates in the correct tile!

Finished one tile before real life got in the way!  Once the rest are done and the "flooring" is installed in the display case, I'll post what they look like with miniatures! (you can actually see one finished tile installed in the first picture of the case, itself.)