Tools Needed:
Hotwire Cutter (I use an electric cutter from Woodland Scenics)
Craft glue or Liquid Nails in caulking tube
Spackle, or drywall mudd
Old Internet installation CD (Free)
Gravel (if using natural gravel, wash off the dust see why below)
Static Grass and /or Flocking (optional, Woodland scenics is best)
2" Blue, Pink, or White Insulation foam (first two are better, but the latter
is cheaper)
Textured paint
Cheap plastic pallette knife
Assorted craft paints and brushes
How To:
- First take your Hotwire Cutter and cut a strip of foam about 8" long
by 2" X 2" square. Shape it to your liking, not four flat sides,
trim all of the edges and make it more like a ribbed cylinder than a rectangle.
Cut it the width of the board at
first and you can make several pillars at once.
- Glue the cylinder a CD, if you offset it on the CD don't forget to take tape, paper
or whatever to cover up the hole in the middle. If you save your 'scrap' off-cuts
made whilst shaping the pillar, you can use them as craggy broken boulders on the CD base.
Wait until the glue dries.
- Now coat your pillar, base and crags/boulders in your 'spackle' or
other similar product to fill any gaps. I use a off-brand "liquid nail" because
LN dries with a skin over it and you cant shape it as well [The generic you get from Lowes
doesn't]. I then blend the
rocks together, fill in any screw ups, and texture the base, you can shape
all of this with the plastic pallette knife, for me it was $0.49. Don't let dry yet.
- This is the time you can add gravel to your base because the texturing
stuff is wet, don't use kitty litter this way because it is dusty and the dust
sticks to the texturing media first, if you use kitty litter you have to use PVA glue.
Again wait for the glue to dry.
- Coat the whole thing with masonry textured paint, this has sand in it
giving it a textured surface, roughly
$10.00/gallon my can though mine is 3 or 4 years old. Let it dry and finish painting
it however you like.
Here is a personal preference of mine though. Most people paint green under
their flock or static grass to make it appear greener, but don't. Gaming terrain
undergoes wear and tear, just like real grass. If you want a greener base with flock or static grass, use a base of flock
first, then once dry, flock or static grass afterwards as a second layer. In my older terrain building
I tried to skip steps and found the steps I was
skipping didn't really work well; one was to put a heavy coat of paint on as
a base, then
flock, this was nice at first, but degenerated with time, just paint your dirt, then use 50/50 watered down
PVA/Elmers to hold your grass effects in place.
Steve Freshour
Custom Terrain: orcdom@hotmail.com
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