May 19, 2010

Terrain for Historicon - Part Six

The next step is adding another layer of texture to the boards. The first thing I add are chips of brick that I picked up from discards at a nearby construction site. The main areas I want the stones are along the river banks and the slopes of the hills, but I'll place a few near roads to tie all of the boards together visually. The pics in this post are of a road - it is sunken where it meets the hillside and though is darn near impossible to see in these pics, it gradually rises to the level of the ridge. The cluster of stones at the top and bottom of the first photo mark out the point where the road enters the slope. I attached these using a hot glue gun, but other glues will work fine. I picked the hot glue gun because it dries instantly.


Now we need to add smaller rubble. I scatter patches of rubble, paying particular attention to the edge of roadways and rivers and around the "boulders" I placed earlier. I also cover up parts of the putty where the knife strokes seem too obvious. You can add patches in open ground as well (see the photos below) but remember that you also want to leave room to place loose terrain pieces. Your models will look fine teetering on a pile of rock, but although your cottage model will be in no danger of falling over, it won't look as good if one corner of it's base is off the ground.
 
The material I use for this size texture is coarse ground coffee. I started using this years ago when someone at work was about to throw out a huge tin of Maxwell House that co-workers thought was too strong. I rescued it, thinking to use the tin for the basis to build a tower. I was about to embark on my first set of terrain boards at the time and realized the texture of the ground coffee would be perfect for mid-sized rubble! That was ten years ago... and I still have some of it left. I have since found that choosing a flavor of coffee that matches the period you intend to game in adds another level of realism to your boards...

Ok, I made that last part up, but you were already thinking about what kind of coffee would go with your Belgian countryside terrain weren't you...

Anyway, I put down a small patch of glue, smear it around with a damp brush, and sprinkle on the coffee grounds.


At this point, the rubble areas will look heavier than they will end up. After letting the glue dry overnight, I vacuum the boards to remove any stray grounds before moving on to the next step. Remember the advice I gave you about the iron a few posts back? This goes doublely for the vacuum. Best not to even risk this when your significant other is home...

9 comments:

  1. Great tutorials - thank you for posting them for everyone.

    I would have thought ground coffee would be too fragile to use like this - I am obviously mistaken.

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  2. Sheesh... hoovering up coffee grounds - what could be more innocent? Still, she's let you have two rooms AND an occasional use of the iron - consider yourself blessed!

    I take it if coffee grounds constitute an unacceptable risk some other rough scree or model railway 'ballast' will suffice? Do you sand off the top edges of the water course at all or just palate knife it when laying down the filler for the riverbed?

    Cheers,
    Doc

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  3. Doc, the pics in this post are of a road... sorry I didn't make that clear (time to edit the post). The MDF board is left exposed and smooth for the water. I only put the filler on the banks.

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  4. Oh, and yes any gravel, ballast, mid-sized rubble will work for this stage. We're going to add a finer layer of texture in the next step to cover the filler and tie all of the different terrain types together.

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  5. With obviously failing eyesight I squinted at the picture (readily viewable to the normal sighted) and lo! I saw it was a road! Doh!

    Sorry 'bout that - I'll look forward to your river ones then...

    Cheers,
    Doc

    PS: To make it up to you - pop over to my blog and help yourself to some artwork!

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  6. I'll be sure to make one of the river boards the star of the next part (coming up tomorrow or Monday hopefully)...

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  7. Clarence, do you use only 25/28mm miniatures on your boards? My problem is I want to use your terrain system but I game with both 15mm and 25mm. Should I just make up the differance? I'm worried roads will look to large for 15mm and to small of 25mm. Thoughts?

    Larry

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  8. These days I normally only play 28mm. It won't hurt if your 28mm units are slightly wider than your roads in march column. Try a few different sizes of roads with scraps of paper to figure out what looks right.

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  9. Yes your right, I'm just over thinking this and being anal!!

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