Wirelizard's Perpetual Terrain Thread (4 June 2011 - plowed fields, WiP photo)

[Wirelizard]

8th March 2010 - I'm converting this into a perpetual thread for all or most of my scenery projects, rather than spawning individual threads for each building, hill or bit of terrain I do. Updates at the end, naturally! Enjoy! Comments & feedback always welcome! Wirelizard
I have a satisfactory amount of jungle terrain, Lost City ruins and similar bits and pieces for my pulp games, but the playing field has been awfully flat up until now. Every single hill I used to own has vanished, presumably during the Years of Not Enough Gaming.

Having split a 2'x8' sheet of foam insulation with my brother, I had material to begin a new set of hills. I decided to make the first one a big 'un - most of the games we do are on 2'x2' or 3'x3' areas, so you don't need a lot of hills. Two big ones, technically, as I wanted a matched pair of hills that could be used together on a larger table or seperately on a smaller one.



The hill in raw pink(ish) foam, with some gravel on parts already. Note that that's a 14" ruler - the two halves together form a hill roughly 23" long, 11" wide. The odd shape is for transport - the two of them fit together in the bottom of the box of jungle scenery.



The Hill all basecoated, and most of the drybrushing done on the cliff & rocky areas. There's a path halfway up one cliff face; the other is sheer. The top of the hill has space for a scenery CD if the two halves are together (as shown), or a smaller base of scenery when used apart. Again, that's the 14" metal ruler.

I went for carved foam rock instead of plaster; it's quicker to build and tougher when transported and used, and while it's somewhat stylized, it's still obviously rock! I think I first saw this type of rock carving in White Dwarf; while I may slag GW's business pratices and dislike most of their sculpting, their terrain building has always been excellent and inspirational.

On a standard .45 Adventures 2x2 table, these two hills set on opposite sides of the area define a jungle valley quite nicely. Used together, they will be a defining feature on a much larger area.

Next up, when the basecoat is quite dry is flocking most of the brown areas with my standard mixed dark green flock.

[Wirelizard]

Added some fine gravel/sand for texture on a couple of bare dirt areas, and flocked the rest with my standard dark green flock mix, the same as I use on most of my jungle bases.

Top photo of the pair shows the path side of the hill halves; bottom photo shows the cliff side. You can see the divide between the two halves better, too.

[Alfrik]

If you want to add some fallen rock to the base of the impassable rockside, glue some odd pieces of plastic, like from see thru plastic box lids or plastic enclosed store bought items. Only has to be about 3 inches wide, glue most of it Under the edge of the hill and leave a small lip sticking out. Paint and pile on rubble rock. The under glued part easily supports the weight of the bit of fallen rock side.

Just a thought, oh and you can stick the odd weedy clump in the debries.

[Wirelizard]

Finished hill, with a couple of Pulp Figures Neanderthals checking it out.

[Mr. Peabody]

You are the inspiration master. Lots of mastery & just enough K.I.S.S. to get stuff nicely done. 

Bringing this to Salute next week? Huh? When is your game scheduled?

[Wirelizard]

You are the inspiration master. Lots of mastery & just enough K.I.S.S. to get stuff nicely done. 

"Just enough K.I.S.S." sounds about right. I can be a perfectionist who never finishes anything, but am trying to break myself of that habit with short, quick terrain projects!

Hence the carved foam for the rock on this hill, instead of plaster sculpted on. It's faster, easier, cleaner, and looks nearly as good. More resiliant to transport, too.

And one of the reasons I post fairly straightforward projects like this to LAF is to prove that not all terrain projects have to be monster epic awesome wunder-projekts from crazed Euro-gamers.  I know from talking to new gamers that as awesome as that sort of wunder-projekt is, they can be just slightly intimidating for some reason. 

Bringing this to Salute next week? Huh? When is your game scheduled?

Yes, this is going to be at Trumpeter Salute next week, no worries! My game is 9AM on Sunday, somewhere in the main gaming hall.

[ushistoryprof]

Nice work.

[Mr. Peabody]

Excellent!
My games are Saturday morning and then again Saturday evening. We will be playing the new, easy-breezy & very fun Vietnam rules from Ambush Alley Games.
Hope to see you there!

[Burgundavia]

"Just enough K.I.S.S." sounds about right. I can be a perfectionist who never finishes anything, but am trying to break myself of that habit with short, quick terrain projects!

Hence the carved foam for the rock on this hill, instead of plaster sculpted on. It's faster, easier, cleaner, and looks nearly as good. More resiliant to transport, too.

And one of the reasons I post fairly straightforward projects like this to LAF is to prove that not all terrain projects have to be monster epic awesome wunder-projekts from crazed Euro-gamers.  I know from talking to new gamers that as awesome as that sort of wunder-projekt is, they can be just slightly intimidating for some reason. 

Yes, this is going to be at Trumpeter Salute next week, no worries! My game is 9AM on Sunday, somewhere in the main gaming hall.

I think this might also be a dig at me (his brother) who just embarked on the building of the art deco hotel seen in the other thread. It won't be finished for Trumpeter Salute. I am waiting for 1/16 x 1/16 styrene for the window frames until late next week at a minimum.

Regardless, I am looking forward to Trumpeter Salute. You Vietnam games sounds interesting.

[Wirelizard]

I think this might also be a dig at me (his brother) who just embarked on the building of the art deco hotel seen in the other thread. It won't be finished for Trumpeter Salute. I am waiting for 1/16 x 1/16 styrene for the window frames until late next week at a minimum.

It didn't start out as a dig against your obsessive behaviour WRT that Art Deco building, but it'll do as one... 

The real reason the two halves of the new hill are shaped the way they are:


It worked, too! They'll form the bottom layer of terrain in a banker's box I snagged from work; I needed an organized method of carrying my terrain, particularly if I'm going overseas with it.

(Local joke; the trip to Vancouver involves a 90min ferry ride, hence 'overseas').

[rob_the_robgoblin]

That's excellent. Very organised too!

But look at all that empty space above it! What's going there?

Jungle Tribe huts? 

[Wirelizard]

But look at all that empty space above it! What's going there?

Jungle Tribe huts? 

Large amounts of existing terrain (including jungle huts!), and depending on which game I'm packing for, stuff like last night's project:


From uncut sheets of foamcore to the WiP state of the above photo was last night's work; the whole thing is 5" wide and 7" long; the building is roughly 2.5" wide, 5" long. The front vehicle gate and rear man gate both slot into guides on the sides of the openings.

The roof is matt board, covered with strips of masking tape for a tarpaper look. It looks good, is pretty universal, and eventually if I want tile or something else extra roofs could be built.

I slopped a coat of paint on it last night just to see how the colours looked; the spackle on the walls needs to be sanded down a bit before the real paintjob starts.

The figure is an unfinished Pulp Figures 28mm reporter, just for scale. He's on a Canadian penny base, 18 or 19mm across.

Inspired by the rubber trade building someone posted (I think to the Colonial forum) a while back, and the various awesome adobe projects here on LAF.

[Wirelizard]

Another small generic building, for anywhere somewhat tropical from Mexico to Asia!



Two stories, the base is 5"x4", the ground floor 4"x3", the top floor steps back for an inset balcony and is 3"x3".

Paintjob is obviously still a WiP; there's stairs, a balcony railing of some sort and a front porch roof all to do still. It'd be done tomorrow, if I weren't going out to a friend's birthday party.

That's a 28mm Pulp Figures British officer for scale in all three pictures, in all his bare pewter glory.

[Wirelizard]

Two storey building done, except for the internal staircase, which I am still trying to figure out how to construct without going mad...

Foamcore construction on a mattboard base, with spackle over the foamcore inside and out for texture. Brown basecoat, tan heavy drybrush, white drybrush. The window frames and railing are wood.

The corrugated iron roof is scrapbooking/craft paper my brother found at the local Michael's craft store. It's two layers, one corrugated backed onto a flat base layer, so it doesn't stack like real corrugated metal does, but it looks good. Black basecoat ( a 50/50 mix of white glue and black paint, actually, for strength, which I've been doing for all of my scenery projects lately... no wonder I go through white glue by the litre bottle...), metallic grey/pewter heavy drybrush, then drybrushed and daubed with about four shades of brown/red/orange for a good rusty look.

I'll probably do one or two more buildings in this style; that'll give us enough for a good jungle hamlet, trading post or mission station somewhere.

[Wirelizard]

Enough of the stucco buildings done to justify calling it a village, or at least a hamlet! As I said upthread a few posts, they're deliberately generic, suitable for most of the warmer parts of the world - large areas of China & Asia, Africa and Central/South America, even Spain and some European areas. The tarpaper and corrugated iron roofs mark them as late-19th/early-20th C, but the roofs also come off - tile/thatch/etc roofs could all be built.

The two newest structures are at the right in the top photo; one small cottage with a walled garden next to it, and a pair of identical buildings with a narrow alley or court between them, with an archway at one end and a removeable gate at the other.

The open-sided iron roof shelter/garage 2nd from left in the top photo is also new, finished last week. It's big enough (barely) to fit a Model T truck or similar in.

All the roofs lift off, as does the 2nd storey of the two storey building. I finished the internal stairs up from the 1st floor last week too, will try to remember to get a daylight picture of it.

Comments, anyone? I feel almost like I'm talking to myself here sometimes, most of the posts to this thread are mine...