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I did do a search and didnt come up with alot. feel free to delete and or link me if i just didnt search deep enough.

My boyfriend is getting serious into the warhammer stuff. Right now he has a fantasy army (technically 2) and recently built himself a table top in the vein of a local game shop.... he covered it in some moss green colored fabric (the type of fabric you use for those reuseable shopping bags, so it has a nice even texture and gives it a little grit) He's had a few games now with his friends and they've been trying to be crafty making terrain out of local knick knacks around the house.

It's our 3 year anniversary coming up and i figured it might be fun to try and make him some hills, boulders perhaps even some buildings since my hours have been cut and money is really tight. im a crafty sort of person so i figured why not try? My question is this, do any of you have any suggestions of items that may be around the house that can be used for terrain? you know, those things everyone has but most people over look that with a little paint or alteration would be perfect! my biggiest worry is making things that wont be in scale.

The first idea that i had roll in my head was useing floral foam (which is super cheap and i have a little here) to make little mounds out of.... i wanted to cover it with something, but dont know what cause the foam itself kind of sheds... then from there covering it in static grass or floral moss or what not.

but other then that im not sure what to use, so i was hoping you crafty guys would help! so help me! please!

Hills are easy http://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/Quick_Hill_Build_Tutorial and for boulders just stick rocks to a piece of card / mdf / hardboard. Towers and stuff can be made from McDonald's cups and cereal boxes.

Check out the tutorials section you should find some inspiration http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/forums/show/68.page

Get him a wire foam cutter. Seriously, the thing I use most when I make terrain. Every time I open a new box that has styrofoam in it, its a chance that that box had a piece of packing that would look good as terrain. Plus, its essentially using fire to cut something.
That part might be a guy thing, but I'm sure he'll enjoy it.

White glue and time for it to set makes some cool effects. Shred that floral foam, cover it in white glue, let it settle, and there you go. Moss that you can peel up. Shredded wine corks and kitty litter look like ground and rocks.

Those spiky ball things that fall out of trees. We have em here in Texas, I'm sure they're in Florida. Those spiky ball things stick together, stick in foam, and look great by themselves, so with some paint/ effort put into it...

Cardboard that you rip one of the sidings off of, and spraypaint silver, looks like corrugated metal buildings.

Steal some taco bell trays and turn them upside down. Pile little blocks of floral foam into a fort, or make some cool area terrain that can be picked up and moved. Its how I move my stuff once my girlfriend has said "Dammit thats enough put the house pack like it was".

Hope that helps.

What races does he have? If you search for Orc terrain, Ork terrain, Chaos terrain etc on Google, you'll get more specific results than general terrain searches, which tend to be very high quality stuff. Orc/Ork terrain is dead easy to make out of cardboard and balsa wood.

My latest bit of terrain is the box that my washing powder came in, with the vertical edges lined with the remains of a DVD case that I hacked to pieces. Onto that, I stuck some bits and bobs I had lying around from old toys and some cheap bits from a model shop. Made quite a nice bunker. Only reason I have no photos up is that it is not yet painted.

I made an Elven/Eldar tower using some nice mineral water bottles. If you can find some with nice shape, they are great. http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/298340.page Since the photos you see there, I decided I did not like the texture, so I went to my local hardware store and bought some spray-on stone texture. It is not expensive, and can really make any terrain you construct look awesome, and cover the texture to better disguise what it was built from.

Here's a tower I made out of a Gatorade bottle and some can lids. Look around, you can use all sorts of cardboard to make houses. sponges and bottle brushes can be turned into hedges. Corkboards can be turned into wall ruins.

That is awesome!

thanks for all the advice guys! i have some floral foam... and some moss... if not the good ol out doors will supply me with more. Coffee grounds is what my friend used for bases, and im going to pay the local beach a little visit too. im sure they wont miss a jar full of sand. XD

also going to hit up the dollar store tomorrow and check out the toy isle and see what gems that might produce with a little fiddling with. i think this is going to be fun.

Oh! and i recently bought a lamp... so i have its foam remains as well! huh.... i have more stuff then i thought.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh! i should add, he has a high elf and scaven army... his friend has chaos...he also wants to play 40K eventually so id like to do some pieces which could be transferable back and forth.

Check out Blackhand's Skaven thread. It is 40k Skaven, so they've been futurised, but he made some cool flying... things...

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/308749.page

I've used this stuff to make craters,it cost about 3 or 4 dollars a container and I can usually get 3 big craters from a tube,be aware that it cures very fast,so you have to sculpt quickly,but once it hardens it paints up real nice.

If you’re worried about scale always have a model handy to check.
As for things lying around that make great terrain;
Cardboard- Buildings, barricades ect.
Styrofoam- Hills, Rocks ect.
MDF/ balsa wood- Bases, sturdy buildings ect.
Pie tins- turned upside-down and indented make great craters.
Rocks and Pebbles- They are great for making Rocky and pebbly terrain. Who would have guessed?
Sand- is great for adding add texture to bases.
Toilet paper and Water - I know that you might think this is stupid, but this stuff sets as hard as rock after a couple days and is lightweight. With it you can make hills, tents, tarps the possibilities are almost endless. If you use a pie tin as kind of a mould you have great craters, I have made quite a few cool craters like this.

Hope this helps .

Oh and Bangbangboom your avatar made me swat my screen!

For craters, take some aluminum foil, twist it into a long stick and then make a circle. Glue it to your board, cover with another piece of foil and shape into a crater.

There are many things that can be done with household Products. Depending on the style of terrain one is interested in doing.

On youtube there is a channel called miniwargaming. They did an entire contest called their junkyard terrain contest. That should give you some really good ideas.

Ive been wargaming on a budget for a good long while now and ive found that while floral foam is OK you way want to consider going to your local home depot type store and purchasing sheet foam insulation. A good number of terrain makers are using it and the stuff is about 12 bucks for a 4by8 sheet. Thats enough foam to build an entire city. Youtube is a great resource for finding plenty of Howto videos.

Another consideration would be foam packaging from boxes. There are plenty of interesting shapes that one can cut into really beautiful terrain pieces. For example Ive built a ruined cathedral out of TV foam packaging. Flat plastic packaging can be painted into stained glass etc.

Honestly I would check out these channels on youtube

thekamloopian
terrainaholic
miniwargaming
bluetablepainting

they all have huge numbers of videos and they link to a lot of very talented people.

OOOOH! thanks for all the suggestions guys! this is all looking great! i've got tons of ideas now!

Buy these at walmart

Foamboard - $10UD for a really big piece (the biggest is a display board like a kid would use for a display for the science fair)
Note: does not have to be black, in fact the black ones are smaller but regardless look for this label.

X-acto knife - under $3USD (may want to pick up some extra blades $1-2USD

Granny grating/plastic canvas around $5-6USD
Note this pic is a very close up shot, the stuff IRL has very small grating.

Old sprues - $0
Net cost – around $20USD
Makes- a gak load of stuff

Look into “miniwargameing” on YouTube for idea’s, or just let your creative juices flow.

Note: Wlamart also carries a load of cheep paints and brushes “folk art” and the like. Do not use your boyfriends brushes or paints on terrain that you make. GW paints are expensive and GW brushes (or any other brush worth useing on a mini) are too delicate, to expensive, and to small to be of much use on terrain.

EDIT: craft sticks are also a must, Also a hot glue gun.

EDIT 2: here is a video useing all the above materials

for stone, i use balsa wood, i would recommend a thick peice to stop the wood from warping since i would then apply pva glue mixed with flour and which ever colour paint i'd be base coating with. Then while wet with a tooth pick drag lines though to make flagstones, but thats what i do.

Ma55ter_fett wrote:Buy these at walmart

Foamboard - $10UD for a really big piece (the biggest is a display board like a kid would use for a display for the science fair)
Note: does not have to be black, in fact the black ones are smaller but regardless look for this label.

X-acto knife - under $3USD (may want to pick up some extra blades $1-2USD

Granny grating/plastic canvas around $5-6USD
Note this pic is a very close up shot, the stuff IRL has very small grating.

Old sprues - $0
Net cost – around $20USD
Makes- a gak load of stuff

Look into “miniwargameing” on YouTube for idea’s, or just let your creative juices flow.

Note: Wlamart also carries a load of cheep paints and brushes “folk art” and the like. Do not use your boyfriends brushes or paints on terrain that you make. GW paints are expensive and GW brushes (or any other brush worth useing on a mini) are too delicate, to expensive, and to small to be of much use on terrain.

EDIT: craft sticks are also a must, Also a hot glue gun.

EDIT 2: here is a video useing all the above materials

I play a little too... and wouldn't use his paints on my stuff. I know better then that. besides if i was doing this as a surprise i wouldn't have access to his stuff anyways. I've done this kind of stuff before. and have plenty of brushes and paint to use at my disposal.

Ma55ter_fett thanks for the suggestions for the board and such and i will look into some things at walmart too.

kevlar'o thanks! thats an interesting idea.

I was also thinking of doing some paper mache for some of the terrains too.

Fifty wrote:That is awesome!

Indeed, and speaks to a bygone era when every table wasn't simply covered with GW's terrain kits, but actually had character and variety...

I love GW's terrain kits as much as the next guy, but can't help feel at times that we have sacrificed creativity/artistry along the way, and GW is laughing all the way to the bank.

If you have access to non-readable CD's and/or AOL disks.. they make great bases for terrain..

I used pine bark mulch and CDs to make some killer rocky outcroppings.

http://www.40korigins.com/40KOrigins/post/2010/09/15/How-to-recycle-scratched-CDDVDs-into-useful-terrain-Tutorial.aspx

If you want trees look through cake decorating supplies - you can get a whole gross of pine trees (144) (look great flocked) for a few dollars. Pennies for a tree.
Base them on CDs as described above for maximum forest overload.

see link: http://www.bakingstuff.com/store/catalog/Pine-Tree-Small-p-1417.html

To the OP: The following linky is your terrain bible, it will serve you well

http://www.terragenesis.co.uk

At my place of work they used to have these huge chunks of bark in the plant beds. I robbed at least a dozen of the biggest bits, drybrushed them up and bam! Awesome boulder formations.

lolly (popsicle?) sticks are great for making fences, especially if you have some wire kicking about too, then you can make a pretty sophisticated fence.

Toys from the dollar store is a great resource for scenery. Sometimes you can literally pick up buildings or vehicles in the right scale. I like to look out for things that will make good statues, that way it doesn't ever look out of scale. Anything from a gargoyle to one of those massive ones in LoTR.

For 40k, I find anything tube-shaped (toliet paper, Pringles etc) makes good towery-type things.

Various home made Terrain buildings.



The domes are plastic Japanese soup bowls. The big square tanks are yoghurt cartons mounted on polystyrene mouse mat holders. There is a man's shampoo container in there.

Basically, everything is sprayed with textured paint, and details are added using plasticard, embossed card, and odd bits such as architectural model parts, lids off deodorant sprays, drawing pins and so on.

This link makes awesome looking terrain from the stuff you in the boxes attached to the figures, I'm sure he might have some you could take.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/329231.page

Mr.Awesome1 wrote:This link makes awesome looking terrain from the stuff you in the boxes attached to the figures, I'm sure he might have some you could take.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/329231.page

I was just about to suggest this thread- if nothing else, it's a lot of fun to play with sprues, and you do get 'em free with every plastic kit.

You're doing something awesome here, I hope you really knock his socks off!

I, and many others here could go on all day about turning over paper coffee cups to make bunkers and the like, and using root-balls of small plants as dead trees, Etc. but there should also be some mention of the philosophy of terrain making!

Basically, if you're going to use pie tins and packing foam, try to work it over enough that it's harder to recognize. If you make bunkers from painted yogurt cups, make sure you at least take some thin cardstock (like from a cereal box) and cut out little square plates and hatch-shaped parts, gluing them all over the sides to break up the shape. Then add some skewers and toothpicks as antennas! Then bottlecaps, thumbtacks and other bits and pieces to look like... well, ambiguous stuff.

Pringles cans and coffee cans and other "pantry cylinders" make great fuel tanks or refinery pieces, but it breaks the illusion if they still have the spiral pattern around the sides. Again, use other products to mask your terrain's identity Strips of cardstock around the sides, styrofoam domes on top, and connecting tubes made from anything from macaroni to to drinking straws.

If you have the time, use beads, drops of glue, or those little press on/iron on "crystals" they sell for applying to to kid's clothes as rivets. Rivet the @#$% out of EVERYTHING. (assuming you're doing sci-fi/modern.)

The philosophy is basically is that the more "stuff" you decorate your pieces with, the less cheap they look. Time and patience are far more important than buying fancy plastic kits and special tools. Look at lots of reference online and look around your garage or kitchen for something will look totally different when turned over or er... cut into pieces.

(Edit: If you're doing medieval/fantasy replace "cardstock" with "bargain bag balsa wood strips.")

My favorite piece of terrain making supply is the the big sheet of styrofoam insulation you get from Home Depot (I don't know about you, but in most "big box" hardware stores, I'll find these on the far left aisle near where they keep the contractors' supplies and gutters). It's the very dense, condensed pink foam sheets - not the itchy fiberglass stuff.

Usually I'll make terrain boards out of it, because it is very light, easily sculptable, and freakishly strong. However, if you get the thinner sheets, you have a great medium with which to build sturdy buildings of just about any size.

I think it's about $20 for a sheet, but those sheets are usually 8 feet by 4 feet, if memory serves.

As for floral foam, I would just steer you away from the "wet foam" - the dark green kind that doesn't have the obvious rigid styrofoam texture to it. You know, the kind that always has a dozen or so finger holes in it because nobody can walk by it on the shelf without poking it a few times? It's intended to hold water to feed live flowers in arrangements, so it tends to have a weird crumbly, dusty texture when it's dry. It soaks up EVERYTHING - including paint - so making terrain out of it just leaves you with green dust on everything you own and a weird gloopy mess on your table.

Strelka is not kidding, not at all.
White glue on top of the crumbled bits makes for a weird, alien texture. soaks up the glue and takes a while to dry though.

Mix a spray bottle with water and Elmer school glue, spray the target, then goat it with the right bits. For a hill I'd suggest ground moss and fine woodchips. Possibly some dirt or very fine gravel in the mix.

Keep in mind this method won't let you hold anything big down to the terrain, but it will give you a feltish texture with very good natural coloring. I've also only ever seen it done with plaster of paris, I have no idea what it would do to other materials.

Some good advice

would just add:
Margarine tubs etc are useful for cheap plastic card
Tea leaves make a good substitute for scatter grass.
Fullers earth type cat litter makes a good scatter and can be ground for different textures- but needless to say "recycled" litter is not a good idea!

Air drying clay can be economical and have found it quite resilient with a coat of pva or acrylic floor varnish.

Please forgive the self promotion but some of my efforts with a lot of household materials and modelling leftovers can be seen in my Necromunda terrain blog:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/150/331660.page

Animal feces is referred to as "Scat".

So "Cat litter makes a good scatter" made me laugh.
Thanks for that.

I dunno, a good cat turd could be curled around a 40mm base easily for a nice entrenchment.