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A few suggestions Chris;

I would strongly consider alternative terrain--outside of the 40k/Fantasy universe. For one, it's been done--and done--and with GW releasing plastic kits--you have some big competition.

Two, there are genres that aren't very well supplied with terrain. Steampunk terrain is actually more rare than one would suppose--and is open to some crazy/unorthodox ideas.


Regardless of your genre, you always sacrifice some detail for playability. Great terrain pieces, outside of blatant impassable LOS blockers---should always allow people to actually play on them. I've seen some wonderful looking rolling hills--yet know that after a few moments of frustrating topples--the hill would be scattered with miniatures playing dead to prevent falls.

Good luck!

If you're looking for inspiration, I suggest looking at Terraformer's work, it's insanely good.

The most important things (IMO) are that the terrain is the right scale and that you can sensibly stand models up in/on it (unless its obviously not meant to be walked on). No steep 1:1 slopes that have figures sliding all over the place!

Other than that, the most inportant thing is the rule of cool: if it looks awesome, then thats all that matters!

Good luck

My pet peeve:

Terrain should have game-scale-realistic hallways. That is to say, base human hallways around being about one and a half to twice as wide as an IG figure (not two IG figures on bases, mind you, two of the figures without bases).

Too wide/narrow hallways just make everything look fake to me.

Also, a lot of terrain is made of remainders, which means it lacks the absurdist/baroque/rococo "gargoyle sitting on top of a gargoyle, with a skull in each hand, with a gargoyle on each skull" design that so much of the 40k art (and so much of the good scenery) displays.

Any links or pictures you can share? Would like to see what sort of quality you are producing at the mo.

In terms of what I think you should make? If you're going for the GW market, then I suggest Non-imperial building terrain. Lots of companies make 'Gothic Ruins' or 'Industrial factory' ruins, but very few if any make generic sci-fi city buildings. I'd go for a Tau look, because it is sufficiently generic to possibly be human terrain in a non-40k setting.

Similarly, Fantasy terrain is lacking in relatively re-usable elements. Elven and Dwarven structures are fairly generic across all fantasy representations (tall spires and interlace-carved mine-sites respectively). Chaos-type structures could also be very useful for the plethora of Chaos/Dark Elf/Beastmen/Etc armies out there.

Are you hand-making each piece or are you building pieces and then making molds and casting kits?

If your production time is increasing due to adding in more detail and you're making each new piece by hand, you could shave off time by making molds of certain pieces or bits that you use often, such as doors, wall sections, etc. You might already be doing this, but if not, that's one avenue to explore.

As others have said, a good piece of wargaming terrain needs to be playable, but it also needs to be versatile. Models should be able to comfortably stand up in and be moved around in a piece of terrain, and you should consider what game the terrain is mot likely to be used with. 40K, for example, involves big units and vehicles. WH Fantasy involves large blocks of units. If the piece is for 40K, there should be room for, say, ten 25mm bases to spread out in it, places for 40mm and 60mm bases to fit in, and areas where a vehicle could be placed. Obviously, depending on what purpose you want to piece to serve on the table top, you might want to make it larger/smaller/more dense/etc. But almost any piece of terrain winds up having all sorts of models interact with it.

For WHFB, you should think about how the terrain works with large blocks of troops. Is there room to put a 6x5 unit in the terrain, or even 7 wide, or 10 wide? If you walk a unit into/onto the terrain, can you comfortably wheel the unit? Can you remove bits like rubble piles, trees, or statues in order to make room for a larger unit?

If the terrain is intended for a small skirmish game, it can obviously be more dense, but players might be looking for something that's more interesting such as multiple levels, walls that have windows and walls that don't, removable/movable doors, stairs/ladders/piles of stuff to allow models to climb up a wall or onto a building, etc.

In all of the examples I've given, they key is playability. If a terrain piece looks cool, but is annoying during a game, it might not see much action.

In terms of details, details sell your piece (as in make it convincing). A well-detailed piece creates visual interest on the table top and good details can even help to make mistakes less noticeable. If you're building finished, painted terrain pieces, detail is even more important. A ruined structure can be a very convincing hive city hab block with some added details such as graffiti, propaganda, sewer grates, railings, etc. Personally, I think details should ideally be unobtrusive to game play while still looking cool.

You can fill a ruined building with all kinds of elaborate rubble, but if you can't put a model down it isn't very usable. However, if you use much less rubble but make it visually interesting or tie it into some kind of narrative, such as a broken up statue in the middle with a few scattered sledge hammers, the piece can be both visually interesting and easily playable. Another area to add in detail is surfaces that models don't need to interact with, such as walls. You can also put a lot of detail into flooring as long as you can still put models down on it. Correct flooring detail can go a long way towards selling a piece and even be pretty easy to do.

Terraformer's Industrial Warehouse and Docks is a great example of what I've been discussing. The piece is packed with details, but many of them are unobtrusive to game-play. There are entrances of all different sizes, and the interior is easily accessible via the open roof and destroyed wall. You can spread a large unit around in the piece and there's plenty of places to fit larger base sizes.

Your stuff is expensive, especially for your buildings. I'd recommend taking a look at the Pegasus Hobbies plastic kit range and possibly reevalutaing your pricing. I feel where your coming from though, I spend a good bit of time building one off boards for varius clubs and companies, if I didn't do it because I enjoyed making terrain I probably wouldn't do it at all. Building terrain in general is never a good return on investment, most people mistakingly belive that its easy to make or they could do better and therefore aren't willing to spend much on it.

Anyways, thats just my 2 cents. Your work is good though.

Took a look at your WW2 terrain. Is that meant for 15mm gaming? Maybe make that clearer by either writing something like "fits a FoW medium base inside" or show it with some FoW miniatures beside it. If it is 20mm, why would you choose that scale? It looks like high-quality terrain, but I do think that your current prices are way too steep. If I want a normal 4x6 table with your WW2 city terrain, I will have to pay a whooping 960£! And because you have made the pieces 11x11" (why not 12x12?), the table is still not complete. You can get a very high-quality commission-table for less than that. Many of the pieces don't really fit in on most tables on their own because of the base, so spending 40£ on a single piece is even less tempting.

I think you might have an opening in the 15mm WW2 terrain if you can manage to supply larger, playable buildings for a reasonable price. Factories, churches, villas etc. Most 15mm pre-made terrain is small buildings. I think most gamers will prefer a building that comes without a base. Option for painted or not with reasonable price-difference might help too. You would have to start casting to make it profitable time-wise of course. Take a look around at what exist.

If you don't want to venture into casting, then commission-work is probably the way to go. (like terraformer) Probably still not great £-per-hour, but if you're good, you might be able to live off something creative that you love to do.

Combination is of course also a possibility (maybe the best option?)

Your website is pretty, but having an entire website in flash is not a good idea for usability. It is slow, it is hard to navigate, it can't be read on an ipad/iphone. Flash is great for some things, not for entire web-pages, especially web-stores. It is also way too many clicks to get a view of your products. An easier and more efficient lay-out would go a long way.

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First off, let me just say your terrain all looks fantastic. Really nice stuff. If I had the money, and I wasn't already neck-deep in my own never ending terrain projects, I would definitely buy some!

Second, to repeat what other posters have said, it's a little pricey, and you don't clearly indicate the scale. I wouldn't worry about lack of detail or anything like that, I think your stuff looks really good as it is. Scale is easy to include on your website (which also looks good!).

The main thing I would do is focus on bringing costs down without sacrificing your profit margin. Your terrain looks like handmade art (which is good) except handmade art carries a hefty price tag. Try not to lose the artistic nature of your work, but still approach it as an engineering challenge. Judging by what you've got on display, I imagine that your materials are inexpensive, but your time invested is the main driver of prices. Like someone already said, see if there are some things you could replicate easily by casting (although that brings along its own set-up costs and the like).

Mass-production by any means, to the extent that you can, is a good idea. You probably don't need anyone telling you that lol. Making multiple copies of something at once, doing the same step on as many different pieces at once as you can, etc. Even if you only have 1 order for Building X, maybe cutting enough foam for 5 copies of Building X and holding on to the extras can save some time (and thus lower costs).

It's hard, but you've got to find ways to streamline your operation. Don't worry about comparisons to Pegasus Hobbies, you're never going to compete with injection molded plastic on cost, detail, or modularity, but you don't have to. You're selling boutique terrain. As long as the quality is in line with costs, some people will buy it.

Sorry for the long diatribe, and good luck!

Hi Chris,

Good luck with the business - I hope all goes well.

A couple of comments:

1) The website looks great - it shows off your product very well.
2) It could be made to look even better with a quick bit of proof-reading. There's some spelling errors that detract from the overall professionalism of the site.

Best of luck, sir.

I like your work and would love a city fight table made up of the terrain but as others have iterated, the price is just a bit too steep. But I still remain interested!

Pre-made / pre painted terrain will always have a following especially amongst those of us with a severe lack of artistic talent, vision and execution. It's one of the reasons I bought a RoB board; I know it's expensive but it's a billion times better than anything I could produce.

Terrain like Terraformers is insanely beautiful - but lacks LOSblocking Elements

Basically:

Pieces that can hide, say, a Serpent-Chassis.
Pieces that elevate the battlefield from 2D to 3D. Having 2 or 3 regular levels above ground brings variety, 2 very steep levels work well.
Pieces that provide cover to Infantry, i.e. Areaterrain.

Last but not least: Make it beautiful.



These 3 keypoints can be combined, with leveled LOSblocking or leveled Areaterrain, or LOSblocking Areaterrain etc etc.

I just wanted to say congratulations on overcoming your anxiety disorder even just this bit. I also suffer from the same line of disorder and I understand how difficult it is to deal with.

As far as the terrain, I would try looking into maybe making some molds. That way you can make simple, effective terrain that is fast to build and paint. I like the stuff you have, but if every piece is hand done then prices have to go up and you get less sales. Something that is easy to ship is also something you should think about.

I've been buying a lot of the pre painted series from Gale Force Nine (Battlefield in a box) for convenience and their price I think is right in line. http://www.flamesofwar.com/online_store.aspx?CategoryID=2484
Something I'd like to see more of though is terrain that is completely LOS blocking. Less ruins and more in tact building or walls. (I know it's the grim darkness, but they should have some repair bot handy right? lol)

In any case, good luck to you.

It seems like many of the walls in your buildings have relatively few undercuts. You might be able to mass produce those with molds and dental plaster. I have no idea what that would mean in terms of efficiency of time/material/costs or how it would affect your profit margin, but it at least looks doable to me.

For the most part, it looks like your pieces are laid out well. Some of the rubble is a little thick, but I don't see a lot of wasted space.

I've sold niche market finished craft products before, so I understand the pricing dilemma. When you consider the time it takes to make a piece, if you priced your time as low as $5.50 per hour and add in material cost, the cost of the final product can start to spread higher than customers are willing to pay, especially considering mass-produced alternatives. I agree with CalgarsPimpHand that economy of time is a significant factor in keeping price down while maintaining profitability.

I'll add that another avenue to consider is a series of products that are extremely low cost to you, very quick to produce, and attractive to customers. This is even better if the product is small and relatively low cost to the customer. Ideally, if the product has a very high profitability, even at a moderate price, sales from those types of products can help to compensate for less optimal prices on larger pieces.

For example, a friend of mine that makes very large and expensive artwork from driftwood also makes cute little wooden key chain floaters that look like fish. Customers love the product and he sells lots of them at craft fairs, but they are incredibly simple to produce.

You might be able to make a line of accessories for your terrain pieces or something like that to fill a similar niche.

Infinity is a growing system, who need great buildings, and lots of terrain... Maybe you could go that way?

good luck to you chris. with social anxiety dissorder you are blessed to have the internet as a place where you can intermingle without feeling threatened. Good for you for overcoming your dissability.

On topic of terrain. I have lots to say but i will make it breif.

1. definitly cast your stuff so you can produce faster and cheaper.
2. as pointed out, make your terrrain unique and different. I.e. steam punk.
3. You can model on stuff like wrecked vehicles and other unique bits that will make it much more valuable for people. I can make hills, rocks and walls with ease. why would i pay someone else for that. But for a terrain peice littered with oildrums, sandback and wattle fortifications, etc. i would pay a lot more.
good luck and i agree that your web site looks awsome.

When it comes to terrain, make it as useful for the game as possible. Can models move on it? Can they move under it? Through it? Can it provide clear lines of sight, obscured lines of sight, and completely blocked lines of sight? The more interactive the terrain is, the more I want it. Keep in mind, it has to be used for a game first. I have picked up a couple of beautiful looking terrain pieces that wound up being totally useless, since they were covered in rubble, rocks, or other 'accessories' that models couldn't balance on. Any part of the model you can't stand a mini on is wasted space.

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