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Hello,

Over the holiday period I've had an idea to get into building terrain to sell - this would be a cast / resin based venture, much like people do with bases currently but I would like to expand this a lot further into building much large scaled based terrain from large buildings, rocks, cliffs , outposts, fortifications but also small scale items such as craters, trenches, road and river chunks, sand bang emplacements. Even a plastic based set for space hulk would be an option. In the long run I'd love to run a small studio with a few artists but hay that's just a dream!


Having spent some time now having a good hunt around on the internet there does not seem to be anyone doing anything similer. GW has a 4/5 buildings and a few independents seem to sell bases and a few odd's and sods but nothing particularly significant. The way I see it tho is there are so many styles and types of terrain / styles of world that really there is an unlimity number of things to make and the idea of it is very exciting!

So what I'm interested to find out is what people think of this, are people interested in buying good quality terrain but cant find any where to buy it? Is the stuff that is available far to expensive? In general would people rather not spend money on this kind of thing and carry on making terrain out of old bottles + card? In an ideal world how much would people pay for this kind of stuff? Any any other comments on the idea!

Being a 40k player my self this is likely to be the starting point for terrain but in the long run there are a lot of other games out there so would defo branch out into other scales, flames of war etc etc to try and reach as many people as possible.

But yea really I'm just trying to figure out if this is worth my time and weather or not there is potental there to sell enough to even go as far as giving up my current job and spend all my time producing art. Now that is obv a long team goal but that is ideally would I would like to do!

Any feed back would be very useful to me and will likely sway my decision

thanks!

Sorry mate but I don't think that your search has been to extensive, there's plenty out there in 28mm scale and others.

Sorry only on the iPhone so I can't link anything but off the top of my head there are the battlefield in a box stuff from GF9, bursts arts molds and companies that sell it already cast/made, Pegasus hobbies kits and many more.

Look also at antenocitis workshop they have allot of stuff as well.

Dakka has also seen others attempt similar set ups recently as well, so have a search and check out the competition.

Thats not to say that more terrain options aren't appealing but it is about (my tip would be to do preprinted terrain btw so invest in an airbrush). Sorry to piss on your chips like that but best you know you are not alone.

No worries!

This really is what I want though, checking out the competition and seeing how much their is. Competition is fine as long as there is a market for the products.

Any more links to folk doing similer stuff would be really useful.

:edit:
Other possibilities are commission bases + builds, could be pretty expensive tho which would of course put people off.

Personally I've been getting into building my own terrain in recent months. I bought a load of rockface moulds from woodland scenics and have been enjoying putting together rocky hills and cliffs.

That's just me though. The success of GWs terrain sets suggests that people are more than happy to buy prefabricated stuff even if it looks a bit samey. All I'd say is do something unique i.e. try not to compete with what others are doing already.

Cool, good attitude.

Again lots of base makers out there. You could look at warmill for custom bases although this is more laser cut plastic rather than scenic.

Speaking of which there seens to be quite a bit of laser cut terrain based around the Infinity game. Look at the Infinity thread in news & rumours. Some real nice stuff that is generating allot of interest in the community.

Your right about the costs especially if you want to earn a living wage. That's what has always put me of that dream hobby job, construction just pay soooo much more.

I imagine that it is like model painting services, you probably need to build a rep before you can charge big bucks or have very loyal customer base.

Let's face it most hobbyists are cheap (I speak from personal experience ) or young/low earner (students) that are quite happy to rummage about for materials in garages/skips to make terrain and are usually happy wath the result. I always apply the "could I make that myself" test to terrain before buying it. If I can I usually don't buy it

Really I suppose what I'm getting at is if it is viable then it depend what your stuff is like, proof in the pudding is in the eating and all that. Do you have any samPles If your work?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Flashman wrote:Personally I've been getting into building my own terrain in recent months. I bought a load of rockface moulds from woodland scenics and have been enjoying putting together rocky hills and cliffs.

..........

Ooooo I saw those on clearance in Hobbycraft. I was tempted but didn't get them. How are you finding them, any tip? I thought they might get a bit samey if used allot?

Sorry for the OT.

Thanks for the feedback.

I'm afraid there are no samples as of yet but hoping to get this sorted out asap.

I am just trying to decide what the first thing to build should be. I need to test the water on the hole casting process but it would also be nice to produce something that would be useful and something people would want to buy.

Options so far are.
- Craters (common but lots of fine detail, good to see the quality of casting)
- Modular bulkheads - Necromunda style - It would be intresting to build a "lego" set style kit that would assemble in multiple ways.

I tend to think terrain sits at a weird intersection of price (people want it cheap, so they can cover an entire table), uniqueness (Most people want a lot of buildings with little individual features so every building looks different), and quality requirements (Most people can make passable terrain, albeit not as good as professional cast stuff...).

The end result is terrain needs to be affordable and modular if possible. And look awesome.

For 40k, I think there's room for both different Imperial design styles as well as Xenos, especially stuff beyond the Ork 'junkyard' motif.

notprop wrote:

Flashman wrote:Personally I've been getting into building my own terrain in recent months. I bought a load of rockface moulds from woodland scenics and have been enjoying putting together rocky hills and cliffs.

..........

Ooooo I saw those on clearance in Hobbycraft. I was tempted but didn't get them. How are you finding them, any tip? I thought they might get a bit samey if used allot?

Sorry for the OT.

Lol Notprop, your Hobbycraft always seems to have the stuff on clearance that I want!

The rockface molds work best when you have a few, but there are also a few tricks you can do to make them look different such as partially filling them at an angle or even simply turning them upside down. If you use the plaster they come with they are pretty fragile and are therefore best used for background scenery. I'm trying to find a more resilient substance that is compatible with the molds. May give resin a go...

Yeah there three near me and its suprising how many work related trips go via these locations.

I would suggest herculite 2 or crystacast (sp?) there what I used for my hirst arts casting. Very strong stuff.

If you use resin, ensure you use a release agent (just sayin').

I use hydrostone, myself, tinted with some builders oxides.

Yes, rock piles tend to look samey. They are rocks.
If you want "individuality" then you will have to give the environmental factors a go; seismic shift - hammer, scouring and eroding winds/water - sandblaster.

That kind of thing.


As for other terrain, Sarissa Precision has just come out with SF laser cut cargo pod terrain sets (I'm talking the bigger cargo pods, like salvaged from colony SHIPS), MicroArts have also got their own catwalks and apartment buildings in lasercut HDF. There is a range of plastic, clip/glue together rooms and corridors suitable for Space Hulk (but you will need a few sets to do even a basic game).
There's LOTS of stuff out there now. You just have to look harder if you can't see it.

@ Notprop and Chromedog - cheers for the resin tips. Going to give it a go. The plaster cast stuff looks ok, but it's just too weak.

StormyBA wrote:Thanks for the feedback.

I'm afraid there are no samples as of yet but hoping to get this sorted out asap.

I am just trying to decide what the first thing to build should be. I need to test the water on the hole casting process but it would also be nice to produce something that would be useful and something people would want to buy.

Options so far are.
- Craters (common but lots of fine detail, good to see the quality of casting)
- Modular bulkheads - Necromunda style - It would be intresting to build a "lego" set style kit that would assemble in multiple ways.

You mean something like this?
http://tinysolitarysoldiers.blogspot.com/2010/07/easy-terrain-building-for-15mm.html though you may be in luck as I'm not sure they do it anymore. It's very much like necromunda terrain in that it's 28mm scale, customisable with bulkheads and walkways, completly plastic and not expensive (£7 for the small boxes up to about £12 for the bigger ones)

Don't know how ya missed it, but Armorcast has terrain of all sorts, that I thin could count as "signifigant" and then in the dungeon crawl mode, there,s Dwarven Forge, and for the DIY folks there's HirstArts...

Maybe draw up a survey to ask people on here and other wargaming forums/groups what they think the wargaming world is missing scenery wise or even figure/gaming aids wise.

i think this would more than the odd thread.

http://www.customterrain.net/home.html

I got some stuff off this chap, it was excellent and a decent price. He does custom order stuff as well as a lot of premade stuff. This sounds to be approx what you are talking about,

I'd say if you're looking at making a living out of it, you need a way of mass producing high quality low price stuff.

I know its quite obvious, but very rarely am I enticed in to buying terrain because the prices aren't great on a lot of it.

Standing cities instead of ruins would be quite nice though

Thanks for all the links.

It does seem like there are a fair few people making terrain but they either sell quite a small amount or the quality of the product's or websites are pretty poor. This makes me think that either the market for this kind of stuff is very small or the quality is not up to standard so the consumer is not interested.

As a starting point I would start with some pretty generic set pieces to get the method of casting down but in the long run I don't see why it wouldnt be possible to design a very modular method of creating buildings out of bulkhead style chunks. Imagen the customization style method / pieces of current GW gear such as ork boyz + marines but in a terrain form. It could make for some really interesting stuff.

personally i'd like to see more 28mm bashed/wrecked civillian cars/trucks/other vehicles and more 'human' post apocalyptic stuff, a bit like from fallout. the 40k gothic stuff is getting tedious.

Please make it better than the urban mammoth stuff if you do go ahead with it, while it's good and cheap, it does look plastic and empty.