![]() Cutting strips, squares or other shapes from plasticard or old gift cards is a great way to do this. Once dry, you can then glue on your bits of choice to create the look you want. An electrical box building from Īfter you prep your piece, glue it to the baseboard and let it dry. Removing any labels and some light sanding should be plenty to help break up the glossiness and assist with the paint adhesion. They’re cheap and easy to obtain, and do not require much prep work beforehand. The basic electrical box, for example, is an excellent small to medium sized piece and a line of sight blocker. Your basic builds are those objects that translate well directly into buildings. Most of the time you’ll have a terrain piece in mind already and have dimensions, but other times you can take a piece of base and just start building and see where it takes you. I highly recommend making your terrain bases in batches. For city/ruins type terrain, a straight cut is fine (table saws do that well). To cut it yourself, you’ll need a jigsaw or a coping saw so you can make those squiggly turns if you are making nature based terrain. Lots of bases I made in prep for the Ruckus at Rodia Cardboard is definitely something to avoid for this reason. There are other materials you can use, but it should be rigid and not too susceptible to warping. There also are a few websites out there that will let you order precut packs. You can purchase small pieces (2×2’ or 2×4’) from a hardware store such as Lowe’s. MDF is my favorite choice for this, and nothing over 1/8” in thickness. Often it will be needed for structure – just holding things together, but sometimes you will need a footprint for defining the area terrain, if you are running it as such. ![]() Your terrain piece almost certainly will need a base. Saws – Hand cutting your base piece is not for the faint of heart. ![]() Wood burner – You can decorate your bases with cracks or ancient glyphs. Wire cutters and wire – Floral wire is really handy for holding things together, making barbed wire or fences or using for a base for organic structures like trees and vines. Some of the tools I personally have for this are here: Your own selections may vary.įoam cutters – Styrofoam and insulation board is best cut with a hot wire.Ĭircle cutter or a compass – Hand cutting a circle is a super difficult task. If you want to make a hobby of this (see what I did there?), the sky is the limit. You can make a lot of variety with just these resources and plenty of effort. Phase 2: Gather Your Resourcesįor your most basic builds, you can get away with a decent PVA glue (Elmer’s Glue All is the best), some type of texture, like sand, a hobby knife, straightedge/ruler and some paint (craft store paint is perfect for this). While this is about creating terrain from ‘scratch’, you can find a lot of 3D files of ‘greeblies’ that work very well with this sort of terrain building. This crater was shaped from air-dry clay and slathered with a mix of sand, cat litter, seed beads and chips of plastic card. Those odds and ends like buttons, bottle caps, straws, old gift and credit cards, and other trinkets can make for great add-ons to your piece and make it look a lot like a box painted with texture and an interesting little building that those stormtroopers need to investigate. Those are all great for a base of terrain, but it’s those bits and bobbins that can really make a difference. Cans, styrofoam, PVC pipes, electrical boxes, balsa and foamcore are things I’ve used a lot. In an era of easily accessible 3D printed and pre-cut terrain, I bring to you some old school how-to! Phase 1: CollectionĪlmost everything is valid for becoming terrain. But it almost always assured that every piece was unique. ![]() It wasn’t always gorgeous terrain, and it was definitely a labor of love. White Dwarf magazine often had instructional articles and occasionally a cardstock punch-out. There was no real internet to speak of, so we learned and shared knowledge. There was not much in the way of terrain kits, and even Games Workshop scratch built their terrain. When I first started wargaming, I was introduced to a bunch of historical gamers and a handful of Battletech fans. We’re taking a look at building terrain from things you may have around the house.
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