Creating Gettysburg for use with Bloody Big Battles and to take to Warfare 2017 in Reading in November

We've often put on participation games at shows before but this year decided to have a go at creating a whole battlefield for a demonstration game that, hopefully, people will enjoy looking at and like to join in.  The game is designed to fight all 3 days in 4 to 5 hours on a 6' x 4' table with units representing whole divisions, as such there is a compromise between figure and ground scale that meant having contours that are aesthetically more extreme than on the real battlefield, which I've visited a couple of times.

What follows, if I can get the hang of this is a series of pictures showing the evolution of the board.

First step was to get 6 sheets of 4' x 2' of 1" Styrofoam and lay out the base layer to ensure it fit.

Next, the contours had to be marked out and cut using a hot wire cutter:

And then the slopes carved using more hot wire tools and sharp knives (please ignore the red contour lines....); the figures are Pendraken 10mm being used to make sure they could stand on the slopes without sliding:

Next step was to mark and carve the rivers and mark the roads, these latter not being carved but marked to make sure they didn't go anywhere silly with the slopes:

The view above is looking down from the round tops towards Gettysburg in the distance.  The whole lot was then covered in plaster cloth to give it a good hard surface that could take paint.

Next the roads were all marked out with 12mm masking tape and a good solid coat of green and brown paint laid down before moving on to a liberal covering of flock:

 Next the masking tape was removed to reveal the roads and then on to the finishing touches:

The roads were flocked with a good brown and the rivers painted brown with blue and the bottom (not realistic I know but it looks nice) with Woodland Scenic water effect then poured in:

Unfortunately I forgot to take any more pictures of the intervening stages and I've not fully finished but the above gives an idea of the effect as we look into Gettysburg; we fought the battle today on the nearly finished board and I'll put up pictures of that to give a better view.