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This is a tutorial showing you an easy way to construct great looking crystal outcrops for your games of warhammer 40,000 from readily available resources.
You will need:
Thin card
Scissors
Phenolic foam (the dense blue stuff)
A sharp knife, I used a kitchen knife but a hobby knife will suffice
Basing brush
PVA glue
Basing material
Paints

1>
First cut your bases out of card into appropriate shapes. Here I went for 5 objective style pieces and 3 difficult terrain style ones.


2>
Cut your foam into columns of 5mm-1cm. do the same so no side of the column is more than 1cm wide on any face.

It should end up like this:


3>
Now cut each column into 1cm-2cm lengths.

Do this until you have what you deem an appropriate number.


4>
Slice and dice these sections until you can make out crops then PVA them to the card, it may be a good idea to sharpen the ends to a point.
PVA basing material onto the card also, mine looked like this:



5>
Now begins the painting. This is more a guide than actual instructions as painting is personalised and depends on the board you want the terrain to tie into.
I spray based mine black.

The crystals were drybrushed Games Workshop colours Regal blue, then Ultramarines blue, then Ice blue.

IMPORTANT!
FOR PAINTING THE BASE I USED OIL BASED PAINTS AND A WOOD STAIN, DO NOT DO THIS AS IT HAS A CHEMICAL REACTION WITH THE FOAM CAUSING IT TO EVAPORATE!

On my board I got nice results and you could get the same on yours. Now I just need some craters...

They look rather nice.All in all a solid tutorial.

Quick and concise tutorial, well done. May I just add that the method you have shown can just as easily be used for creating standing stones and rock formations...here are some that I made about 10 years ago and they are still going strong.

Yes, I think gw uses foam for lots of terrain too, it's easy to shape, also having terrain going for a decade? well done!
but for some reason they suggested using cut up pencils to make crystals

Cut-up pencils? Can't see how they thought that would work well. Yours are much better using the foam.

Pencils already have that hex shape and are a lot sturdier for battle. They are also a lot easier to find than hex plastic rod.

They are usually used on mini bases more than for LOS blocking terrain though. Foam will be very fragile at 5-10mm.

You can use the pencils around the bigger foam crystals as smaller crystals.

I wouldn't recommend the cardboard basing you've used, as it will warp, guaranteed.

The biggest problem any time you use foam is chipping. It's easy to knock a crystal off accidentally.

Concise and effective, I like it. Is the foam the blue insulation foam board found in DIY stores?

I use trapezoidal sprue for "little" crystals to base necrons. Just cut to length, whittle the end to a faceted point and abracadbra!