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TexaS
11-07-2015, 14:30
A short description of how I make terrain.

1) First make sure you have the tools needed.

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Missing in the picture: Fine sandpaper

2) If using power tools like me, make sure you use all the necessary protection.

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3) Buy the materials needed.

Masonite, Styrofoam, filler, wood glue/white glue/PVA glue, paints and flock.

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Make sure the size fits in the car...

4) Draw the shape you want your coastline to have. I use the edges to make coastline and the inner part of the sheet for islands and sandbanks. I often draw things I would like to include on the piece like a fort or woods.

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(The part I'm making varies in the pictures.)

5) Use the saw to cut it out. I try to follow the drawn line as it't easier to set the finished edge before making the slope towards the water.

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I use a knife to cut the slope along the edges to remove material more quickly. Then I use the file to make the edge sloping down to the water smooth and more sand-like in shape.

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6) Draw the contour of the higher ground on the Styrofoam. I do this free hand and as long as you are outside of the shape you can cut away more later when testing it in place.

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7) Cut the Styrofoam using the knife. Continue to trim it until you have a shape you think would look good. I try to not use the full height of the Styrofoam block or glue another layer on top at some parts. That makes your terrain not have the exact same height everywhere which will look strange sometimes. At other times this might be a wanted effect, for example parts of the northern coast of France.

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Don't worry if it's not perfect. The filler will smoothen things out.

8) Glue the Styrofoam to the Masonite using PVA glue.

9) Apply filler. I cover all the Styrofoam with the filler and never mind if it gets a little thick. If it cracks when drying (it will) you will fix that in the next layer applied. I use a finger to apply the filler and by wetting the finger you can get a smoother surface. There will be lines in the structure along the way the filler is applied. I try to let those follow the way rain would flow, making them seem more natural if they are visible when it's finished.

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As you can see the edge of the Styrofoam has lifted slightly and made a visible edge. There was a crack too when dry. This was fixed in the following steps.
10) Let dry thoroughly.

PIC

11) I usually sand the filler lightly before the next layer of filler to check if the first layer was thick enough or smooth enough

12) Apply another layer of filler. Make sure to smooth out cracks and cover parts where you sanded through to the Styrofoam.

PIC

13) Sand the filler as smooth as you want it. Some structure might be good to keep if it looks well enough.

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14) Paint it. I use acrylic paints and start by painting the whole terrain piece in a thicker hobby paint, not for miniatures. Usually you should look at pictures of the place you want to emulate and then make it more cartoony. Rocks don't look very grey in nature but to show that it is a rock you could dry-brush light grey on it.

I start with a basic sand coloured paint and then use a brownish colour to represent more soil than sand. I start with the brown at the top and water it down as I get lower to the sand. If there is large cliffs I paint them in grey and then dry-brush a beige or light brown on it followed by a little grey very close to white as high lights. If it's a lesser area I dry-brush grey on a sand coloured base and add a little near white high light as above.

15) Flock it. I use Woodland scenics fine turf glued on with diluted PVA glue. Use an old paintbrush that you don't care about anymore and apply a mixture of PVA glue and water (perhaps 50-50). Pour on the turf and let dry. I have a few different colours of turf I mix between, like earth, green grass and weed. You can make your own blends too, but if you vary different turfs you get a more natural looking result.

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16) I also add Foliage-Clusters or Clump-Foliage to symbolize bushes and perhaps low trees.

17) Seal and it's finished.

Notes:
When making a coastline I made a defined width that all coastline were supposed to fit to. It has a width of 8 cm and a profile I drew on a template, but then lost. Now I use a piece of finished coastline as a template to draw the profile on the Styrofoam. It's not really recommended and if you do make sure you use a colour that wont destroy the finished piece. You might slip.

When making sandbanks I cut out small strips of Masonite and make the filed slopes meet without using any Styrofoam at all. I still apply filler.

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Smoothened it using my finger and water. (Is that a word?)

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I make different shapes, several at a time.

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When finished.

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The beige looks almost white in the picture.


To be continued...

Redcoat
11-16-2015, 04:08
Jonas Good job, waiting to see more of your work.:beer:

Bligh
12-28-2015, 01:50
Well it all looks very good so far Jonas.
I can follow that when I get back to my coastline after the New Year celebrations.
Rob.

surfimp
02-23-2016, 08:40
Very cool. What sort of filler do you use?

TexaS
02-23-2016, 09:45
It's some kind of wall filler. I could take a photo of the tube when I get home, but it's probably a Swedish brand.

Bligh
02-23-2016, 09:56
When I make my landscape I just fill with PVA Glue. Not the schools sort the Woodworking Adhesive.
Rob.

TexaS
02-23-2016, 10:13
It sure gets tough but if you cover the piece in it doesn't that warp when it dries?

TexaS
02-23-2016, 10:44
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It says acrylic filler for joinery.

surfimp
02-23-2016, 11:09
Cool, thanks! Very nice work. I love terrain... the SoG stuff is nice, but 3D is so much nicer :)

Bligh
02-23-2016, 11:52
It sure gets tough but if you cover the piece in it doesn't that warp when it dries?

Not if you damp the back slightly. If I am working large I put my board on a damp tea cloth. For smaller objects I have an old book press.
Rob.

Tordenskjold
02-23-2016, 12:41
It's very nice piece of crafts Jonas. Well done. I know that way of making terrain and when the process is accelerated, that foamstuff becomes magic.

Tordenskjold
02-23-2016, 13:01
Once i built a small hill for my grand cousin Playing warhammer. I used very coarse mulch to make rocky slopes. Just glue them to the foam and one above the other. Then the wall filler and the same procedure as you use Jonas:
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Morten
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Bligh
02-23-2016, 13:12
Looks jolly good to me Morten.
I remember one Summer when Mrs Kyte and I roamed all over the Lake District taking photographs of Rocky outcrops as research for a project with which I was involved. When we are driving about we still laughingly point out any rocky outcrops the we come across. Yours look PDG to me.
I quite like to use cork bark for the scarp slope of this kind of terrain.
Rob.

TexaS
02-23-2016, 13:30
Not only great terrain, but also beautiful photography!

Union Jack
02-23-2016, 15:54
Very nice pieces all round.

Comte de Brueys
02-24-2016, 02:12
Nice ideas for forming terrain. :thumbsup:

DROU
02-18-2017, 15:29
I've used expanded polystyrene to make hills and cliffs in the past, I tend to use 2 part car body filler on top in a very similar way to your wall filler, it's cheap for the amount of material and hardens brick hard without shrinkage so no warping.
Eventually (3-10 years of use, they crack and chip, seldom needing more than a dab of paint to make it right) and a few get lost to traumatic clumsiness.

You can make very pretty looking results using the foam alone, but i wouldn't waste all that work, it really doesn't last. A friend of mine once bought a dozen or so 2'x2' terrain tiles about 2" thick. It came in vinyl protective satchels for transport and storage, with hills, gullies, roads, fields and swamps fashioned on the surface. it was machine flocked onto the foam and looked very pretty initially but without the protection of a harder surface they came to look shabby within 6 months and dreadful in a year or two, they weren't cheap either. For anyone wondering about using expanded polystyrene without it's worth noting that the extra loose hill sections that came with this set broke all around the edges and were binned within a month. I tell a lie, 2 of the small flat hills survived with a downgrade to wargaming table coffee coaster.

These days like Bligh I like to take advantage of the new non-expanded denser foam boards, easy to cut, takes paint well and the finished article is pretty robust but most of my old terrain still has ceiling tiles and insulation inside as the basis.

However you make it, if your terrain turns out as well as the pics I've seen of TexaS' or Bligh's, you'd have to be seriously proud to put it on the table.

Bligh
02-18-2017, 15:41
The only time I used wall filler for bases, the green paint faded within a year to a pale greeny yellow.
Your car body filler is far more robust in keeping the colours you use on it Phil.
Rob.

DROU
02-18-2017, 16:02
Haven't had any issues with colours fading, but then I'd always paint porous filler with watered PVA (white) woodglue (2 coats watered 3:1 works well), then begin your paintjob on top of that.
That fading issue might be an essential part of the paint base getting sucked away into the very dry porous material and not sticking around at the surface to do it's job.

I don't use pva on the denser boards as I've found the more vinyl-like surface tends to separate from the pva which tends to flake.

I do tend to inset a lot of oddments, bark and cork for cliff/weathered textures, bits of old root for trees, small stones (helps living at the seashore). When a block of DAS or similar clay starts to get stiff and look past it's best it soon turns into fancy figure bases, 28mm roofing, field boundaries and will now be rough small terrain features like sea cliffs, rows of houses and castle/harbour parts. It's amazing just how much random future project useful stuff a fist sized mass of that stuff can turn into and it's (almost) cheap as dirt.

TexaS
02-18-2017, 16:19
Yes, the wall filler is a bit porous but I use an acrylic paint that is a hobby paint for bigger things like chairs as a base. That is the sand coloured beige paint I apply first. It's thicker than the usual miniature paints and covers the filler very well. My terrain pieces are about two years old by now and look very much like when freshly made, except perhaps a little flock may have been rubbed off.

TexaS
02-18-2017, 16:23
By the way...

Fortifications:
http://sailsofglory.org/showthread.php?3960-Fortifications

Small harbour:
http://sailsofglory.org/showthread.php?4032-Colonial-port-updated

DROU
02-18-2017, 16:31
It's a fine line between poly vinyl ACRYLATE (pva) glue and a thick ACRYLIC hobby paint, you're definitely doing the same job TexaS and that stuff is made to cover well in one coat.
Don't tell the wife but I steal her big tube "crafting" paints for base colours on bases and terrain a lot more often than she'd ever guess heh. She has a rich dark forest green that covers like magic and I think comes from "The Works" for a pittance. My Vallejo game and model acrylics work happily on top without any apparent chemical spitefulness.

DROU
02-18-2017, 16:38
I'd seen the fortifications post but missed that gorgeous little port, they're a joy and an inspiration both

Bligh
02-19-2017, 02:03
I'm glad you found this one for us again Jonas.
I looked earlier but failed to locate it in the time I had available.

http://sailsofglory.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=21939&d=1460805958

The simplicity od the design is enhanced by your treatment and use of colour, to make it a most striking piece of architecture. It would grace any table.
Rob.

Bligh
02-19-2017, 02:12
Phil, you can also firm up the expanded polystyrene by giving it a whiff from one of those electric paint strippers. It melts the surface and makes it much more robust.
A mate of mine who makes models for Games Workshop tipped me off to this one.
Their work has to stand up to abuse from hoards of school kids playing at the LGS.

Rob.

TexaS
02-19-2017, 03:07
I'm glad you found this one for us again Jonas.
I looked earlier but failed to locate it in the time I had available.

http://sailsofglory.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=21939&d=1460805958

The simplicity od the design is enhanced by your treatment and use of colour, to make it a most striking piece of architecture. It would grace any table.
Rob.

The colours I used are the colours of the real fort today, even though it has been expanded upon. From memory I think the bigger white houses in the foreground has been replaced by a bigger perhaps Victorian age building.

That is why one of the buildings is a beige-brown, non-descript, boring house. I wouldn't have thought of it otherwise.

DROU
02-19-2017, 04:51
The heatgun idea is very clever Rob, you're basically turning an outer layer of the expanded polystyrene back into non-expanded whilst keeping the inner bulk of the material light. The outer layer you end up with wouldn't tend toward seperating from the base either.
Have an industrial weight gun to test what kind of look the surface has afterward. If it gives anything clifflike then it's got to be used, otherwise I'd have to bond the filler to it anyway so prob better result to keep to one method but certainly have a lot of old packing to test it on.

phil

Bligh
02-19-2017, 04:54
It only requires a light whiff Phil.
Rob.

DROU
02-19-2017, 05:28
That's what they told me about Johnny Garlic's chicken Rob..

Nightmoss
02-19-2017, 09:46
I hope I'm not butting in here, but when I do make 3D scenery I've found that all the products from model railroading companies work out very satisfactorily. Woodland Scenics is probably one of the largest firms here in the US and has an incredible range of products.

http://woodlandscenics.woodlandscenics.com/

All their products went into making my fantasy Pirate Island.

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Hjl
02-19-2017, 12:14
He is my meager contribution.

http://sailsofglory.org/showthread.php?3965-Look-a-fort-on-a-hill-with-a-small-town-and-harbor-next-to-it!

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Nightmoss
02-19-2017, 12:20
He is my meager contribution.

http://sailsofglory.org/showthread.php?3965-Look-a-fort-on-a-hill-with-a-small-town-and-harbor-next-to-it!

http://sailsofglory.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=21552&d=1459697092

I don't recall seeing that? Nice work. I like the way you have the large buildings placed behind and to the rear elevations of the fort. :thumbsup:

Bligh
02-19-2017, 12:32
Two superb pieces of scenic work there chaps.
The Fortification on the rugged headland and hamlet could be anywhere in the west-country Hugh.

As for the fantasy Pirate Island Jim, the mind boggles. What a clever concept.
I also have recourse to Woodland Scenics from time to time.
Rob.

DROU
02-19-2017, 13:58
Both pieces really add to the table, are those yellow leds in the eyes of skull island? I do like the subtlety of the image, it allows you to get away with the cheeky reference heh

Old Salt
02-20-2017, 06:09
Some nice work done by all of you in this thread

Nightmoss
02-20-2017, 10:02
Both pieces really add to the table, are those yellow leds in the eyes of skull island? I do like the subtlety of the image, it allows you to get away with the cheeky reference heh

I actually used electric tea lights. One set was flickering yellow and the other was the kind that pulses through the color spectrum. I think I posted a test video on YouTube. . . .yes, here it is. Pretty corny looking in retrospect. lol.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFrqX2G9bKY

DROU
02-20-2017, 13:38
One man's corn is another man's want it for my own ...got to unashamedly steal that!

Had half a memory and so just dug in the draw and found a polystyrene skull that flashes red eyes and gives a cheezy deep and sinister laugh when you press the button. Already split open so the guts are ready for instal.

Who says subtlety, restraint and self-respect are important qualities? I'll keep the cave features semi-natural looking as you did, but once my opponent has a ship strike then it's time for celebration island's cheer!

Ooh! I wonder if I can find a toy with cannon sounds for adding to a fort?

Son has a really battered old playmobil clone pirate ship that I seem to recall...

Sorry for lowering the tone guys ..actions prejudicial to good order and the dignity of the service

Hjl
02-20-2017, 16:16
One man's corn is another man's want it for my own ...got to unashamedly steal that!

Had half a memory and so just dug in the draw and found a polystyrene skull that flashes red eyes and gives a cheezy deep and sinister laugh when you press the button. Already split open so the guts are ready for instal.

Who says subtlety, restraint and self-respect are important qualities? I'll keep the cave features semi-natural looking as you did, but once my opponent has a ship strike then it's time for celebration island's cheer!

Ooh! I wonder if I can find a toy with cannon sounds for adding to a fort?

Son has a really battered old playmobil clone pirate ship that I seem to recall...

Sorry for lowering the tone guys ..actions prejudicial to good order and the dignity of the service

Haha I'd love to see that in action!

Nightmoss
02-20-2017, 17:18
One man's corn is another man's want it for my own ...got to unashamedly steal that!

Had half a memory and so just dug in the draw and found a polystyrene skull that flashes red eyes and gives a cheezy deep and sinister laugh when you press the button. Already split open so the guts are ready for instal.

Who says subtlety, restraint and self-respect are important qualities? I'll keep the cave features semi-natural looking as you did, but once my opponent has a ship strike then it's time for celebration island's cheer!

Ooh! I wonder if I can find a toy with cannon sounds for adding to a fort?

Son has a really battered old playmobil clone pirate ship that I seem to recall...

Sorry for lowering the tone guys ..actions prejudicial to good order and the dignity of the service

Please post photos or a vid. I'd love to see that as well. :happy:

Bligh
02-21-2017, 02:50
Sorry for lowering the tone guys ..actions prejudicial to good order and the dignity of the service

Not at all Phil.
We all need a bit of light in our lives!
Please see my last post here.

http://sailsofglory.org/showthread.php?4450-Campaign-medals

I leave it up to yourself to decide into which category you fit.:happy:
Rob.