River Sections - Steve Freshour

Tools Needed:

Utility Knife
Craft glue or Liquid Nails in caulking tube

Static Grass and /or Flocking (optional)
Foam core
Textured paint
Cheap plastic pallette knife
Assorted craft paints and brushes
Tamiya Transparent blue
Masonite
Dremel Tool and or sand paper
Jigsaw

How To:

1. Draw out your river sections and think about these have-to's whilst doing it:
   a. keep river sections roughly same length, 12" is good
   b. Keep all river section ending with the same width, 4" is good
   Cut out your river base sections and make the edges either tapered inwards or vertical. [You can use many things for the base either foam or even MDF.]
2. Glue the edges or banks of the river about 1/4" in from the edge in a line, don't get it too wide and stick them to the back of the foam core.  Let the glue dry.
3. Shape the edges of your rivers with a sharp utility knife, if dull, you will only end up having to fix the foam core where it inevitably breaks.  Now measure your end banks [where one section will join another] and mark them with at roughly 1" in, make they all have the same measurement.  Between the ends you can change the banks to whatever width you want but the ends all have to be the same size so they join up..
   
4. Now since you didn't glue the middle of these boards cut out the foam between the 2 banks, dont worry about sloping it now, that comes later.
   
5. Texture the edges of the pieces where you screwed up and also the inner banks with glue and gravel or spackle.  If you want rocks in the middle of the water, stick a blob of putty there and place a rock in it and sculpt you some rapids around it.
   
6. Paint your river, I did so in the classic blue and white, but later after this picture was taken I added the Tamiya Transparent Blue to give the river a better look.  
   

Here is a personal preference of mine though, most people paint green under their flock or static grass to make it appear a deeper green, but don't.  Gaming terrain gets worn, just like real grass, what happens when real grass wears off?

If you want a greener base with flock or static grass, use a base of flock first, then once it's dry flock or static grass afterwards as a second layer the snow flock also looks good when layered. From experience, don't use the GW snow, you get about five times as much from Woodland scenics for the same price and a better product as well in my opinion.

In my older terrain building I tried to skip steps and found the steps I was skipping didn't really work well, one was put a heavy coat of paint on then flock, nice at first, but you will find out later that it deteriorates, just paint your dirt, then use 50/50 watered down PVA/Elmers to hold your grass in place.

Steve Freshour

Custom Terrain:  orcdom@hotmail.com

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