Setting the table for my space battles

With the version 2.0 of Pax Stellarum pretty much ready, I decided to improve the table and scenery I use for my space battles. 

I do have a space mat, but it's a bit too blue, too full of nebulae, and I wanted something darker, so I just sprayed one of our gaming tables at our club black, added stars with the tooth brush technique and painted a few gas clouds to give it a bit of color. 

The result was a very convincing outer space background with little investment:

I also worked on some pieces of scenery. Below are a couple of Hyperspace Rifts. In game terms, ships moving into contact with these risk getting randomly projected to a different spot on the table.

On the back of these I painted Distortion Fields, which affect ships' heading when they move in contact with them.

I also painted a trio of planets, much larger than the ones I previously had. These are styrofoam half-spheres that I covered with acrylic puty, sanded and painted.

First, a gas giant:



Next, an Earth-like planet:



And last, a barren planet or large moon:

To come up with mines, I used sewing beads, they're pretty inexpensive, and already come with holes for the pins, so quite practical. I would prefer to have used the mines from Battlefleet Gothic, but they go for crazy prices on ebay these days, and I needed a lot to use in a minefield, as well as to represent mines laid out by ships while they move, so for now these will do.

Below, I put some ships next to a mine token to give an idea of their scale:

I already had several pieces of plasticard sprayed black which I use as area terrain to determine the boundaries of my asteroid fields, as can be seen on the pic below. Their underside is painted as nebulae, so I can use them both ways, just like my Hyperspace Rifts/Distortion Fields.

I'm now pretty satisfied with my gaming table. Looking forward to putting it to use soon!