Help needed for pirate themed terrain

[Gracchus Armisurplus]

So first I'll outline my plan, and then hopefully someone will be able to provide some suggestions or solutions!

What I have is one of the mats from the GW game "Dreadfleet" (I actually have the whole game, but that's another story) and what I want to do is put a 15mm Caribbean style pirate/colonial port over it. But what I want is for the ground layer of the port to be generic enough that it can be variously reconfigured into different street layouts or different terrain layouts. So for one game it may be a small British port, and in the next a bustling pirate town, and in the third a larger Dutch colony.

Ideally I'd also like it to be able to be used for jungle settings for ancient ruins or cannibal villages.

Thoughts? I'm thinking ether a neutral dirty grey sort of colour? Or maybe a dirty sand colour? Or perhaps a cobblestone pattern on one side and a dirty brown on the other? I don't really want to spend more than I have to (I'm trying to do this project on a budget) so the watchwords are cheap, and multiple functions. And easy. I'm very time poor at the moment so complex jobs will be shelved until I have more time and I really want to get moving on this.

The port sections will be made from cork bark, filler, and hirst arts blocks for sea walls and maybe fortifications. The buildings will be paper print outs from www.davesgames.net and various other bits of terrain will be scratch made or use plastic trees from ebay. The rules to be used are Ganesha Games Flashing Steel, so it's intended for skirmish games using a dozen or so models per side, so the terrain can afford to be very three dimensional and dense.

So, any suggestions or advice?

[Mako]

Hmmmm, a sand and brown color would work well I suspect, for older towns and the countryside.

Gray sounds better for more built-up, modern towns, due to stonework, I suspect.

Then of course, there's the whole issue of what color the sand is, e.g. white with a gray underlay, tan colored sand, etc., etc..  Depends upon where your planning, I suspect.

I'd watch reruns of the Pirates of the Caribbean, and/or Black Sails, or look up images for that using Google, for a decent start.

Can't go wrong checking out what others have done too.

Personally, I'd plan on the more rural dirt/sand boards for that olde style settlement appeal.

[Gracchus Armisurplus]

Thanks for the input, yeah a dirty brown sort of colour is where I'm leaning. I do pop Black Sails or Pirates of the Caribbean on sometimes for reference, but I always get sucked into watching what's going on and only afterwards do I think "Oh right, I was supposed to be watching the sets for inspiration!"

[Mako]

I can see how that could be an issue.

If you've got the DVDs though, or On Demand availability, that might make it a little easier.

If not, just do some Google searches for the various scenes from Black Sails, and/or Pirates.

Been wanting to do a pirate ship bombardment of a small town or two, plus perhaps some cutting out/burning raids vs. merchant vessels.  If they get really unruly, might even do a shore raid against a town too, just for grins.

[Codsticker]

When I am building terrain I just Google whatever my subject is (ie. jungle waterfall) and click images. Usually I get lots to look at with no plot to distract me  .

[gamer Mac]

Have you tried searching the forum for ideas?
I found a lot of ideas on here