NEAT TERRAIN IDEAS Posted by Lt. Craggs [mthomas@netgenics.com] on June 03, 1999 Well I told Mark Theurer(?), that Freelancer guy, that I'd bring some terrain in for the new Target Expo Signiture Event Big Fugly Battle (back when it was just a pick-up game of shirts vs. skins. Now its polo's vs. suits.) Anyway, as such I've been doing a lot of work on terrain. Here are some quick ideas to use your garbage and make some cool stuff out of it. BTW, the spray paint coloring is only base coloring, you'll still need to flesh it out some. Spray painting just gives you an overall color from which to work with, and saves about seven hours worth of painting by hand. 1) Out of college? Don't know what to do with that case of unsharpened pencils your mom sent you? Can't find a pencil sharpener, no problem use it as terrain. Pencils make for great wooden telephone poles. Clip off the metal/eraser base, glue on some thin stir sticks as the cross beams(the kind at Starbucks), spray brown, and violia... telephone poles. They even look cool when you snap the pencil, it makes the telephone look like something exploded around it. 2) Don't like AOL? Can't stand the fact that you have about 4 million AOL CD-ROM's? Well, here's another use for them. Spray paint them green, and glue your trees/hedges to them. There is a problem with this, as some of the CD's don't take the spray paint very well. 3) Want quick ruined buildings? Use styrofoam. The strofoam packing that comes in GW boxed sets is great for this. Just rip out chunks for battle damage, cut spaces for doors/windows, paint with watered down Elmers glue (this is key as otherwise the spray paint will melt the styrofoam), spray gray, and poof... ruined buildings. 4) Want water in your river, but don't wanna shell out about $40 US for Magic Water? [Magic Water is the stuff you can get at super-enthusiat rail road stores as a dry powder you mix up, and then spread like frosting.] Here's 2 quick ways for water. Spray paint the river/pond/pool bottom a glossy blue. Then use either clear-colored silicon sealant or clear-colored silicon aquarium sealant as the water. This is messy, but you can carve swirls, and waves in the stuff and it looks really cool when done. 4b) The other quick method, is base the bottom with the glossy blue spray paint, and then pour about 1 cm of Elmers white glue into the river basin. It'll take about a day for the glue to dry clear, and you'll need to do some painting/coloring work to get the dry glue to look water-ish. But it also works well. 5) Have old metal railroad track that is rusty and doesn't work anymore? Just slap a section together, and voila, a rail head objective. You'll need to have the track enter and exit your gametable, as otherwise it looks pretty stupid to have about 15" of track that doesn't go anywhere. 5b) also what you can do with train track is you can bend it/damage it so it looks like saboteurs have been there and ruined the track. 6) Have a ton of old film canisters that you haven't thrown out because 'They have to be good for something?' Well here you go. Remove the lid and glue the top of the canister to a carboard base. Spray paint reddish brown, and voila, large metal drums for cover. 7) Want lilly pads for your jungle marshes? Use beer bottle caps. Put some clay in the cap, paint it green, glue it clay-up, and voila... lilly pads. 8) Can't quite get your reeds or tall grass to stand up long enough for the glue to dry? Use bolts. Stuff the reeds into the bolt, apply glue, and allow to dry. You'll still get some 'fallage' but not as much. Problems I've been having. 1) If anyone knows a good way to keep carboard bases from warping when you spray paint them/glue them I'd love to hear about it. 2) Other than Knead-A-Tite, is there any clay type compound that works well for cementing stuff together and filling gaps in models? 3) Any ideas on making sidewalks and roadside curbs? Hope your terra-genesis goes as well as mine as (or at least as fun... most of my didn't go well.) Lt Craggs... terrain makin fool. --- [From: rattrap1@excite.com] Don't know what to do with all those off-cut pieces of foam, bits of balsa, and other sundry items that can't make anything on their own? I'm working on building a city (expect the debut at the Target Expo) and in all those old war photos you see piles of rubble littering the street. Well, all that scrap I mentioned above can make great rubble piles with just a little bit of work. First, cut an irregular shape for the base (cardboard or thin foam will do). Next, cover the base with a 1/4" thick layer of spackle (do not water it down or use YUK, you want it thick). Press pieces of scrap material into it. After you have covered the entire base, start building up the center of the pile. Don't be afraid to just stick pieces in any which way. Have them jut out at odd angles, leave a couple of flat spots where models can stand, etc. Once you have built it up to the height you want, let it sit for about a day and a half (the thicker the spackle sections are, the longer it takes to dry.) Once it is dry, paint black and then dry-brush in grays and white. Glue some odd bits on (weapons pack guns, model tires, etc.) and you now have debris for your cityscape that is easy to store and looks great with models piled all around it. If you have many buildings, you can even cut a straight edge on one of the base sides. Build that edge up the highest and slope down from there. Place it against a wall to look like debris that has accumulated right next to the building. Richard A. Johnson: Overunderling who will one day get around to photographing the terrain --- From Lazarus [gallard@triplei.com]: : 1) If anyone knows a good way to keep carboard bases from warping when you spray paint them/glue them I'd love to hear about it. Are you using Cardboard (ala boxes) or poster posterboard (ala picture backing)? I'd suggest the posterboard. It costs what, $1.50(US) a sheet, or most picture framing shops will give away their scraps. For added strength, glue 2 pieces together and place a heavy book on top so it dries flat. When you go to glue your terrain to the base, the glue will not warp it. Also, to prevent warpedge from painting, coat the entire base with diluted white glue (even areas that don't get ground cover). This will act as a sealant on the base. : 2) Other than Knead-A-Tite, is there any clay type compound that works well for cementing stuff together and filling gaps in models? Ok, I'm a cheap b******d. You can use 2 substitutes here. Tester makes a model putty that comes in a tube like their model cemet. It is used for plastic model building, and costs about $1.30(US). Another option is viynl(sp) spackling, you know the kind used for drywalling. DAPP makes it and it can be found in your local hardware store. It is a little harder to work with, but once dried it is sandable and shrinkage in negligible, plus it's a whole lot cheaper in the end. Neither of these can be used for cementing, and I would suggest either 2 part epoxy, superglue, or carpenters glue. The last is the best buy, and works better than white glue. : 3) Any ideas on making sidewalks and roadside curbs? This one is easy. Make the base of the building, leaving about 2 inches around the outside of it (ex: your building is 8 inches square, the base would be 12 inches square; 2 inches on each side extra). Once you have the walls set, cut 2x2 inch squares out of a ceral box. Glue these squares on the base around the building where the sidewalk will be. The gaps will look like the cracks between side walk slabs. You can take a square and cut it up, then glue the pieces on, and it will look like the slab is cracked. Paint the sidewalk cement grey and wash heavily with black, this will bring out the cracks. This method can also be used to make brick corners and foundation blocks on a building. Play around with it. If anyone would like, I have more cheap terrain ideas and would be more than happy to share them. My background in this is from building dioramas for military models, and I just desperately hate the cartoony terrain that the folks at GW like building. I like my terrain to look real and gritty, and to be functional. ---