Scratchbuilt terrain from plant containers & diy silicon gaming mats

[zrunelord]

Hello again all ,
been some time since I posted.

I'm a firm believer in recycling, as most of you know by now. ( see my posts on sprue )

I strongly believe that we are the sole saviours of this planet of ours. I fear that with the easily available
home 3D printers we will produce more & more plastic. The positive thing is that we gamers usually
tend to horde stuff & not throw it away , so please reduce, reuse , recycle.

Here are Scratchbuilt terrain from plant containers 15 to 28mm & diy silicon gaming mats

The guy who we buy plants from had these trays used for putting pots in, seedlings etc.
Obviously as soon as I saw them I thought that they'd be great for terrain. The pics are top
and bottom. As you can see the shapes are excellent for buildings etc.

These are my thoughts.
1) Fill them with plaster & cast but these would be too heavy.
2) Fill them with expanding foam but I have to make a contraform otherwise the
foam will force them out of shape. The pieces can be cut into individual parts.
great for variety. There are corridor like shapes also.
3) The square shapes can have card roofs glued to them , then cut into individual parts & fitted into each other for superb storage. I may glue magnets on the inside so that walls , door, vents etc can be easily removed and will add to endless variation.

https://castrarunis.blogspot.com/2020/09/scratchbuilt-terrain-from-plant.html





















The diy silicon gaming mats is not my idea but by a great Australian guy.It's a great idea to share.
on this link.

[CookAndrewB]

Lots of very interesting possibilities there, Z. Can't wait to see what you do with them. The top squares and the bottom circles have the most obvious use as stand alone structures in my mind. I prefer the circles to the squares, but I can see pretty easily how I would chop them up for that purpose.

[zrunelord]

Yes Cook,
They would make some very interesting terrain.
and here are some 15/18mm buildings using plastic egg cartons. I found out that this stuff is actually very thin polystyrene, i.e. the same stuff used for plastic kits and so can be glued with the normal glue.
It is thin and very brittle but can yield great results. It can also be easily melted to make goo... as explained in another post ... I think I will be filling them with a little expanding foam to make them sturdier then fix them to a card base

Z

[darthfozzywig]

Nice!

[Oldben1]

Those look great, I like the shapes!

[zrunelord]

Thanks .
As you can see , one can create some nice tech shapes with what is usually thrown away.

I think it is possible to crush them , fill with foam or resin( though this might melt the thin plastic,
still have to try it out )  and create ruins.

I will do connecting corridors next.

Z

[zrunelord]

Continuing on building models from recycled materials ( which I will post more about soon ) here is a vid I found which is shows some very nice scratchbuilt from trash models.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9rt8b5bZyI&feature=youtu.be

Enjoy
Z

[Cacique Caribe]

Z

I’m always inspired by examples of smart resourcefulness, yours included!

Dan

[CookAndrewB]

Z, if you fill them with foam do you think the expansion will pop the walls out, or is the plastic rigid enough to direct the expansion out of the bottom? I've got a gaming buddy that has had pretty good luck foam filling his terrain, but I've been reluctant to give it a go.

[zrunelord]

Thanks Dan,
Glad you like them.

Cook,
Good question.
I will make an educated guess as I have not tried it .
If the foam expands outward it will mean disaster as this plastic is too fragile.
If it flows up it shouldn't be a problem but it will be a problem if it contaminates the outside of the model.

For sure i will shore up the sides with square heavy weights just to make sure , use small squirts and go round the edge/ cover the sides with masking tape to prevent overflow.

This should help.
Will post more as I have lots of plastic packaging saved up.

Another thing one can do is to make a plaster of paris  contraform , but this is only worthwhile if you have loads of the same thing.

Z

[tin shed gamer]

Taking a quick look at your photographs.
I wouldn't recommend using expanding foam As it'll play havoc with the walls and joints. Especially if its a card to card joint . As it can cause de-lamination of one or both pieces of card.
You can achieve a good level of rigidity for builds like this . By using screwed up kitchen foil / tin foil. Packing it into the cavities. It's very quick and simple.Cheap and easy to get hold of.

[carlos marighela]

If nothing else, some of the more conical, pointy, examples do give us a better understanding of Madonna's wardrobe choices circa 1990.

Jean Paul Gaultier must have drawn his inspiration from somewhere, after all. 

[zrunelord]

That' s a good one Carlos.

Tin shed .. I still have to see what the chemical in the foam will do.
There will be a reaction for sure.
Will try the tin foil idea,
Card bulwarks are another option.

Z

[Commander Roj]

Could you put the tray in a bowl of water and weighting down the edges. The water pressure might help equalise that from the foam.

[zrunelord]

An interesting idea....
Unfortunately you would need something like a bathtub's volume to perhaps have an effect.  .
Now if you were to freeze it , that would be a different matter
Altogether, you can have a small quantity.

One can use natural clay also then wash it off once finished

Z