Making a snow landscape with icy river - help needed!

[traveller]

After having seen the new S&S 40mm Napoleonic "Retreat from Moscow" miniatures. I am considering to build a gameboard with snow terrain and a river crossing. Problem is how to make the snow reasonably realistic as well as making ice floes on the river. Any help out there? Grateful for any suggestions!

[Westfalia Chris]

Obviously, the most straightforward option is to use modelling snow, preferrably from a railway modeling supplier (as GW's is as usual an overpriced version of that). It does look nice and fluffy if done right, but to work out properly, I personally think that one must first do a proper structuring underground.

An alternative would be to get the finest sand you can get your hands on (I use a "quartz" sand) and mix it with white artist acrylic. This can be used to create a "lower layer", on which you could sprinkle the modelling snow, to provide the fluff. I've been using the quartz sand and acrylic method for a couple of years now, mainly for commissions, and I think it looks nice (and customers were happy), but I'll admit it does look a bit like "frosting" from a certain angle - but if combined with model snow, it's quite convincing and relatively cheap to do.

Generally, I would suggest doing a standard board surface and the covering it widley, but not completely, with snow. Somehow, an all-snow board tends to look unconvincing, but if you leave patches of open ground, or muddy roads to provide contrast, it looks more realistic.

For ice flows, I would try getting some "milky translucent plastic", occasionally found at craft stores, glueing two or so layers together, and adding some snow on top. You'd want a bit of translucency, but an overall white effect.

[OSHIROmodels]

Great advice from Chris 

I would suggest that Google images is your friend also, to help you get the right 'spread' as Chris mentioned above.

For the river I would make it as deep as possible and use several layers of water effects or clear resin so you can have the ice floes, quite literally, floating on top. Get the milky plastic about 1-2mm thick and snap the edges with a pair of pliers as this will give a very pleasing ragged, icy effect.

cheers

James

[Christian]

While it is drying you can give it a light dusting of Baking Soda. I've found this is good for fluffy snow.

However, never having seen real snow in my life I could be horrible, horribly wrong.

[Henrix]

Important things to remember:

Shadows in snow are bluish. If you get that right, and a bit of sparkle on the top, you are basically home.

Snow lies in drifts. Put it up higher on the side of things where the wind blows from. This is the same all over the board.

Water with ice breaking up is greyish or grey brown. The ice is generally covered with snow, but when the ice is breaking it is not bluish.

You can make broken ice with plaster. Pour it out in a thin layer. When  it is thoroughly dry you break it. Best is to lay it something that is a bit soft, like tissue, and push it sown with your fingers.
And then you just lay the pieces out on the water with a little space between.

[Henrix]

Here are some pictures showing what I mean. (Click them for bigger versions.)

[anevilgiraffe]

someone on here did an iceflow board for a thing/mythos type game... looked really good...

[AndrewBeasley]

A few links for you:

http://senjistudios.com/?p=1882

http://takethehighground.blogspot.com/2010_04_01_archive.html

http://craigswargamingblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/terrain-winter-trees-ii.html

http://www.terrainthralls.com/Tutorials%20folder/Crushed%20Ice/Crushed%20Ice.html  complete with game

http://www.terrainthralls.com/Tutorials%20folder/The%20Ice%20Man%20Cometh/The%20Ice%20Man%20Cometh.html

Hope they help
Andrew

[Mason]

Jason Buyaki wrotr an excellent article for Wargames Illustrated Issue 269, if you can get your hands on a copy.
In particular, his ideas for using plexiglass (Plastic window section in DIY store) for ice flows is particularly good.

[traveller]

Tons of good ideas here! Many thanks to all of you for the support. Much appreciated!

[Scout_II]

How "realistic" are you looking to go here?  If you are looking to have a board that has a bit of white stuff on it...that is pretty simple.  If you want it to actually look like a snow covered landscape, things become a bit more complicated.

If you look at the second image that Henrix posted, you see what snow looks like when it falls relatively gently.  It piles up on underlying structures (plants, grasses, stacks of wood...) and you see a bunch of bumps, dips and shapes.  To get that look, I usually will place a bunch of objects on the board that are the rough shape of what I want covered.  In the open areas, even things like tall grasses will cause those effects...so it is pretty rare to see a "flat" area of snow.  Once that is done, I grab some aluminum window screen and roll it out over the table.  Cut out for things that will be poking through the snow (buildings and the like) and push the screen down over the objects.  I use a chunk of dense upholstery foam for that.  It lets me put a significant amount of pressure on the screen without shredding my hands.  Secure the screen in place by wrapping it around the edges.  Staples are your friend.  They will either not be seen (on the bottom) or will be covered (in areas like roads that will be mostly flat...but still snow covered).

Keep in mind that the roads will be almost level...so just staple the screen directly to the board in those areas.  Also, decide on the wind direction.  Snow will drift on the wind side of the building like a wave...but on the opposite side, the snow will be more shallow.  As the wind breaks around the building, it will normally leave an area directly next to the buildings that is nearly bare.  If the snow is not wind driven though, you will have more or less even level of snow all around the structure without a drift.

With the screen secured, use a automotive putty like Bondo to cover the whole thing.  This will provide a solid substrate for gaming on, and should hold up to all but the biggest of gorilla gamers.  At this time, add things like wheel tracks on the roads and foot prints.  The Bondo will hold the details well enough, and it is easier to do it all at one time than to come back later with things like spackle.

Install structures, flora and other details.  Use a tiny cutting bit in your Dremel to clean up edges around the holes.  Use a small bit to drill holes for trees and similar items.  Place and secure those items, and do any repairs needed from goofs with the dremel.

Paint the surface white or very light blue (both have benefits...I actually prefer the very light blue though).  Apply a thin coat of your favorite terrain making glue (PVA or the like) and use glass micro-spheres as flock over everything.  More glue and than another layer of micro-spheres.  At this point it should really start looking like Christmas.

Do similar work on the buildings and trees.

Some tips when doing this work...

I keep a shop vac near my flocking station that is used only for flocking.  No dirt ever goes into it.  After I have applied a generous coating of flock...use the vacuum to suck up the extra.  Those brush tips are great for getting off the loose stuff.  After that, you can open the canister and pour the loose stuff back into your flock storage containers.  After you are done with a given flock project, wash out the canister and filter if needed so you don't mix flock materials accidentally.

The plexiglass works great for for the ice.  The hard part is getting it to break.  Head to your local hardware store and ask if they have any scrap plexiglass that you can have (a lot of places offer cutting services...so they have a bunch of scraps that are an inch or two wide).  Use a tool like a scratch awl to score the acrylic and then snap it over something like a thin dowel or the edge of a table.  Be careful, snapping plexi in this manner is very energetic.  The break will be more like broken ice and less like cut plastic in this way.  Once all that is done, I like to put some 200 grit sandpaper on my orbital sander and scratch it up to give that frosted look.  Normal plastic cements work great with acrylic, so when you are gluing your ice jams together you can get a good bond with them.