Terrain help.

[Robert241167]

Hi everyone

Before I start may I say that I am not the DIY type.

I am thinking of the best way to make good FOG terrain as at present a lot of my terrain is coloured felt.

I though of buying and cutting some wood that would be suitable for fields, plantations, forests etc. I also thought that I could add additional smaller layers of wood to make small and steep hills.

As a novice does anyone have ideas on the following:

What wood would be suitable?

What tools would I need to get the smooth shapes I need?

How would you go about painting them?

Thanks for any help.

Rob

[Irmin]

Carpet tiles cut to shape work well as fields, rough ground etc. Can also layer them to produce hills.

[lawrenceg]

Hi everyone

Before I start may I say that I am not the DIY type.

I am thinking of the best way to make good FOG terrain as at present a lot of my terrain is coloured felt.

I though of buying and cutting some wood that would be suitable for fields, plantations, forests etc. I also thought that I could add additional smaller layers of wood to make small and steep hills.

As a novice does anyone have ideas on the following:

What wood would be suitable?

What tools would I need to get the smooth shapes I need?

How would you go about painting them?

Thanks for any help.

Rob

For wood types, plywood, MDF or hardboard would be most suitable.
Hardboard is probably easiest to cut.

For smooth shapes you want a padsaw or a jigsaw, followed by sandpaper. Fields and plantations can (should) be rectangular so you can use a normal saw for them.

You can paint with emulsion or acrylic interior house paint. A purist might advocate a coat of wood primer first, but you can get away without it. A textured paint such as "polytex" will also work (I use this for figure bases).

[will05]

Hardboard is cheap and great for this.

I would cut the hardboard into desired shapes, cover in PVA, sprinkle sand over that, brush PVA over that when dry and paint earthy colours. Then when paint dry flock them.

Thsi leaves you with a flat piece of terrain that looks quite nice. To make them into specific terrain types, you need to make little pieces of terrain that you then place on these boards. The beauty of this is that you need less storage space for the terrain, and when your battle groups move over it you can move the pieces around and thus maintane the integrity of your battlegroups.

I make the pieces by cutting irregular shapes from thick card , covering with ready mix filler and doing the sand thing , then sticking on stuff to make bushes, trees, vines, hedges , walls, crops, etc.

A good place to look for materials is http://www.barrule.com/workshop/scratch ... ramas.html

I have pics here mostly of my minis, but there's a lot of my terrain in the pics here http://littlearmies.pbworks.com/

[Nebelwerfer41]

My advice, stay away from wood and use foam. If you're not the DIY type, put down the timber saw and pick up a hot foam knife. Less mess, you can do it indoors (ventilated) and it will be a lot easier to transport.

[DaiSho]

What wood would be suitable?

What tools would I need to get the smooth shapes I need?

How would you go about painting them?

Thanks for any help.

Rob

Hi Robert,

Trust me - it is easy. So easy I'm sorry I didn't do something about it earlier.

A lot depends on how transportable you want the terrain. Mine ends up being pretty heavy, but I have enough to do an entire battlefield and it's still able to be put in my 'box'. A friend of mine just carries a travel bag with him and it seems lighter for some reason.

In either case, MDF is your friend. MDF stands for Medium Desnity Fibreboard. It comes in various thicknesses and is absolutely fantastic stuff. Be aware that I have heard that it is supposed to be a little carcenogenic so you don't want to breath the fibres in, but I'm not sure if that's just rumour control, or if it's a fact. I don't think it's particularly good to breath any fibres in - carcenogenic or otherwise - so wear a mask if you're doing sanding... they are cheap.

Tools, the thing about MDF is that it's so easy to work with. I'd buy a cheap jigsaw - you can get them in Australia for less than $50.00. If you want to do hills and you want to do them quickly, you'd benefit from an electric planer but the friend mentioned above uses a stanley knife.

Painting... go to the same shop you bought the MDF and electrical gear and ask for 'sample pots'. They will try to warn you about how it isn't sealed properly because they don't put blah blah blah into the blah blah blah - don't worry about it. You're not using it to paint your walls, you're using it to paint wargame terrain and you're likely to flock it etc.

Once you've painted your terrain (with MDF make sure you paint it all - even bits you're not going to see) paint it again with whiteglue and flock til your heart's content. I use Woodland Scenics avail from most hobby shops.

If you need any further info feel free to ask.

Hope this helps.

Ian

[Robert241167]

Thanks for the advice everyone

I have just got back from B & Q with 2 large sheets of hardboard, a jigsaw, sandpaper, glue, paint and brushes.

I will have a go at cutting them out tomorrow and see how it goes.

Rob

[Wodeson]

I recently used a A2 sheet of 5mm foam card to build some stepped contoured hills.

I sketched out a design that left a minimum of 30mm between each step, and cut the shapes out with a hobby knife.
Then I went back about the edges of each shape with the hobby knife to roughly cut out a 45 degree slope.
I glued the stack together with wood glue, and applied fine surface polyfilla to smooth out the edges.
Then I painted diluted wood glue onto the edges and sprinkled sand to create some texture.
Finally I sprayed the whole thing brown, and applied flocking to the flat surfaces.

Play testing the hills, we found only one or two bases refusing to remain upright when placed crossing a step, which is good enough for me.

[Robert241167]

Well I've cut and painted my hardboard in the desired shapes.

Just 1 question, should I paint the flakey underside of the hardboard too?

Rob

[will05]

no, don't bother.

[deadtorius]

Easy paint idea, get some small cans of spray paint in greens and browns, give your terrain some light shots of random colours you can then flock over top and the random colours will show through. Remember that nature isn't full of solid colours.

Easy road ide a friend of mine came up with years ago, would also probably make a good base idea for a village as well. He used white cloth cut into the width of the road. Sprinkle with fishtank gravel and spray lightly with grey primer. Makes really nice cobblestone patterns.

For fields if you can find carpet tiles with the embossed patterns in lines they look like plowed fields.

Low walls for enclosed fields can be scratch built by gluing more fishtank gravel in rows on top of each other to desired height.

[will05]

For rocks cat litter is your friend

[Legionbuilder]

Check out this site
I saw of his stuff on Friday and it is great

http://www.theterrainguy.com/
He has stuff specifically for FOG
Does not get better than this guy


I like the big terrain stuff from Zuzzy better BUT the Terrain Guy has fantastic Hills

There is also a guy on the south side of Chicago who makes Murff-Turff but he is hard to get a hold off

[Legionbuilder]

http://www.zuzzy.com/

It is table covers to fight on and it is fantastic
just some dry brush and you are good to go

[johno]

If you really are starting from scratch to build hardboard/MDF contoured hills, then let me offer you some tips from my own experience. They are all pretty obvious to anyone who as done any of it before, but they might be new to some.

-- when you design your contours, set them up dry first, and try all your common base sizes on them, to make sure they stand up. Adjust spacing as required, until you find a contour spacing that suits your usual bases before you glue the pieces together.

-- if you are going to texture your hills with sand, don't use expensive Scenic sand from model shops. Buy bird sand from pet shops: it comes in fine and medium grades, is usually less regular in grain size than the model shop stuff, and the last stuff I bought cost me 70 pence per kilo.

-- When you add sand to your hills, find a box lid to use as a tray to work in, both to control the mess, and also to make it easier to recover loose sand. Glue on a few patches of the medium grade, let that dry, and then cover the while with fine grade. When dry, shake the excess off into your tray, tapping the bottom of the hill firmly to shake off anything even slightly loose - I brush over mine with a stiffish brush, as well, but you might not want to go that far. Removing loose material now will make it less likely that stuff will come off after you've painted it. When it's all dry, paint it your base earth colour, add any drybrushing etc, and then some flock.

-- glue a length of thread along the crest line of long hills, or a cross made from a couple of short lengths of thread on the tops of circular hills. This will indicate crest lines and peaks without possibility of argument, and is almost invisible from any distance away once the hill has been painted and flocked. There's an example at the bottom of this picture (click thumbnail for a larger version in a new window).



The oval hill in the foreground has a clearly defined crest. The kidney shaped hill in the background of that picture has its peaks marked with thread crosses, and a crest line on the saddle between them, but it's almost invisible at the range the picture was taken.

-- Don't make specific pieces of area terrain, like rocks, scrub, etc. Instead, make flat generic areas of terrain, that you can put some trees on and call a wood, put some rocks on and call rocky, or some bushes on and call scrub. Or leave empty, and call it some version of uneven ground. It is much more flexible, and much easier to store and transport than the Games Workshop approach of making mini-dioramas of each terrain piece. Use the small offcuts left over from cutting irregular shapes out of your hardboard sheet to make bases for rocks, scrub or tress, and use the same basing techniques as your terrain piece, so they blend in nicely.

[Robert241167]

Has anyone experience of using cork tiles for terrain?

There are plenty cheap 12" by 12" on ebay that I think may be useful for fields.

Rob

[Legionbuilder]

cork breaks up over time as does ceiling tile - BUT they do work and they then give you places to have figures on them
They can be a real pain to transport BUT it will work

[longvalleygamer]

I've been gaming for over 25 years and found the best and most realistic(and cheapest) way to use terrain is to buy medium green fleece material and spray different colors of brown and darker green on it.Then buy flocking in different hues of green and some brown and spread it on the table. For hills use the 3/4" poly pro which they sell as insulation sheets. Cut them out in desired sizes and shape with a hot knife. You don't have to color the hills since you put them under the fleece and the material will take the hills form smoothly.You might want to outline the hills lightly with a little brown flocking.
I'm one that the visual look of a game is important to me. Once you have this you can set up any terrain just by cutting and smoothing the foam. When you do this over time you will have alot of variation.

[longvalleygamer]

I've been gaming for over 25 years and found the best and most realistic(and cheapest) way to use terrain is to buy medium green fleece material and spray different colors of brown and darker green on it.Then buy flocking in different hues of green and some brown and spread it on the table. For hills use the 3/4" poly pro which they sell as insulation sheets. Cut them out in desired sizes and shape with a hot knife. You don't have to color the hills since you put them under the fleece and the material will take the hills form smoothly.You might want to outline the hills lightly with a little brown flocking.
I'm one that the visual look of a game is important to me. Once you have this you can set up any terrain just by cutting and smoothing the foam. When you do this over time you will have alot of variation.

[CrazyHarborc]

Water based interior house paint (the cheaper brands) in various earth shades. DO NOT wait for the paint to dry!!! For a foot long 6-8 inch wide hill (I use styrofoam) paint on (I use a 1 & a half to 2 inch brush), then sprinkle on a mixture of shades of grass/flocking. I do this over a spread out to catch it newspaper on my work table top. Saves the flocking that didn't "catch on to" the wet paint.

A hobbyshop has books to show you how to make terrain. Model railroaders how to do it books can work. Google terrain making. Libraries should have how to make terrain books too.