much ado about nothing: Terrain

Tuesday, January 7, 2014

Boer War Terrain

Continuing on with my recent bout of productivity, I thought I would display my recent terrain creations for my burgeoning Boer War project. I needed a surface to recreate the South African veldt over which my figures could be used. I've opted for a ground mat rather than terrain squares (as with my WW1 project). This was done primarily so I could place hills underneath the mat to create undulating terrain, but also in order to streamline storage and transport.

I began with a simple wool army blanket, much like the ones used by firemen or first responders to warm victims. On top of this I put a thick layer of sand coloured latex based primer. While this was still wet I sprinkled fine construction sand. The results at this stage can be seen below:

Wool blanket w/ latex primer and construction sand.

I used the construction sand in order to help give the surface a bit of texture and grit, while I chose latex based primer as it would prove to be more flexible once dry. Next, I put a very thick coat of the same sand coloured latex primer on top of the first coat (and construction sand). Once this was dry, I found that I had a very durable yet flexible surface to work with. The results of this stage can be seen below:

After the second coat of primer.

After doing extensive research (read: google), I found that for the South African veldt I should be using a palet of greens, browns, and tans. I purchased some cheap dollar store craft paints for this purpose. Upon watering down these craft paints approximately 3:1, I used a large brush and painted them each on in large swatches. The results of this can be seen below:

Coloured swatches applied.

I still was not yet happy with the results at this point. The colours seemed to distinct; there was not enough of a blend between them. I opted for some highlighting to solve the problem. I applied a heavy drybrush of very light brown (read: white with a hint of brown). On top of this I applied a light highlight of pure white, finishing the job. With a light sprinkling of ground foam ("smegma") I had lying around I had a complete ground mat.

Rolled up for easy storage

I left the sides unpainted so they could fold in upon rolling in order to contain all the "smegma"

I still have yet to perfect my system of hills. At the moment I am just using simple blobbish shapes cut from 1" pink insulation foam.

With hills underneath.

I am still working on more terrain required for this project, but I was able to scrounge enough to make a decent looking scene. I found a forgotten bag of spanish moss and put it to good use as scraggly patches of bush. The river is leftover from my previous Old West collection. Below are just some pics showing off the collection so far on the new mat.

Next time I will be constructing rocky outcroppings to turn these rolling hills into more abrupt South African "kopjes".

Thursday, May 23, 2013

Building 6mm Terrain Boards in under 72 hours, Part 1

When Mike and I began working on this project, we had about three and a half days to get it done before this year's RayCon (Which I hope to be blogging about during the event itself). If that is the case you, the readership of this blog, must be asking, then why does the title say less then 72 hours? There is a quite simple explanation for this: 1. being housemates, Mike and I have had to "deal" with having guest over this week and 2. we discovered a computer game "Wargame: European Escalation"and have been playing a little to much of it.

The strange benefit of playing so much of Wargame: EE is that their maps are very detailed and perfect to use as templates for building terrain.

Mike wanted the initial batch of terrain boards to be useable from the Second World War and the Cold War and set in Europe.

Day 1 (Tuesday) :

Setting out around lunch time, we drove to various locations around Kingston picking up the supplies needed. A discovery at our local arts supply store yielded the base on which we set out the build the boards. For a very fair price, you can purchase wood painting panels, which just so happen to be perfect for terrain boards as they come in a variety of sizes and are all framed, no more fear of the dreaded MDF warp.

Mike begins by mapping everything out onto the wood. He had pre-planned before hand, but lack of 2 foot by 2 foot panels forced him to change it up slightly.

A 1 foot by 1 foot terrain panel that Mike did up earlier this month as a tester.

By end of the first day of work we managed to cut out the rivers, glue stockcard on the bottom and use drywall compound (aka smegma) to create the rivers. We also started work on the Autobahn panels.

Day 2 (Wednesday) :

Around lunchtime on Wednesday we got to work again, getting good work done on the Autobahn. The day ended with a game of spaceships that was canceled by the horrible weather we have had in the evenings and nights. Believing that the thunderstorm could be weathered out under our gazebo, Peter, Rob and Mike had a nasty surprise and were last seen dashing into the house with all forms of gaming stuff.

The unfortunate Peter falls asleep while Mike is working on the boards.

Day 3 (Thursday) :

It was really only until today that we realized that we really needed to kick things into top gear and crank out the remaining 60% percent of construction and 100% of the painting.

We set to work in the early afternoon and by working as efficiently as possible, we managed to get the entirety of the construction done around 7:30.

Adding the fields, dirt roads and base for the forests, we soldiered on. Now we are forced to play the waiting game as the drywall compound and acrylic paint used to seal the foam dries.

The boards are really beginning to take shape.

The project begins to spread around the backyard.

Hopefully we can post up tomorrow in triumph, having stayed up into the wee hours finishing the boards.