The picture below illustrates this idea.Īs you can see, we can make some different types of angles and curves that a lot of terrain avalible pre-made tends to forget about. This also opens our hedgerows up to new natural shape possibilities. You can use an orbital saw to cut various shapes to make your future gaming boards more tactically interesting rather than sticking with round or square bases. I used hardboard to make all of my American Civil War stands and woods bases. It is great for making all types of bases. The board I get is 2' x 4' at a 1/4" thickness for easy cutting. This also can be found in some craft and hobby stores, but you will pay more for it. The first item on our list is the hardboard that you can pick up at a hardware store in the lumber section.
#How to make wargames terrain hedgerows upgrade
In this case, I decided that we need to upgrade our standards for our Bolt Action Tournament terrain. I am usually finding myself making some terrain here and there for Kalissa and I's games when we are not making them for other people. The picture below shows an Afghan dwelling I made to go with my Caesar 1/72 Modern US Elite Force H058.Back to the dark photos of my camera and some terrain making. You can make many different types of buildings: houses, bunkers, huts, shacks, etc. Always work from a picture this will help you to stay on track and make your building more realistic. (It is nice to have cardboard of varying thickness). For the crags below I first painted a base coat of slate gray, then dry brushed in light gray, then in white.īuildings are very simple, and all you really need is cardboard, glue, filler, and paint. After this, you can repeat the process again using an even lighter color, if you wish. This creates an instant highlight-and-shadow effect.
The way this works is that the brush will only really press against the raised portions of the surface, and leave the deeper recesses darker. You will need to do this a few times to achieve the right effect.
Wipe off most of this paint, so the brush is almost dry, then lightly brush it against the surface that you wish to paint.
After painting your base coat on, dip just the tip of your brush in a lighter shade of that same color. This technique could also be called "instant 3D-ifying," because it brings out the raised areas of a surface, making it appear more 3-dimensional. This simple and easy technique will do wonders to your terrain. I painted the rest of the hill green, ready to be flocked. Finally, I glued on a few pieces of gravel in the niches. I painted the crags gray, then drybrushed in a lighter shade of gray. Always use filler on Styrofoam it will cover up the pebbled, unnatural surface of the Styrofoam. I slathered some filler over the whole thing, filling in the gaps and giving it texture. To make the crags (far right) I just hacked and carved at one side of the Styrofoam to make them appear rocky. I first glued two sheets of cardboard on top of each other to make a firm base, then glued a molded chunk of Styrofoam on that. Below is a simple hill I made from nothing more than cardboard, styrofoam, glue, filler, paint, and some gravel.