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Quick bricks I do for basic rustic looking walls. I trim leftover bits of pink insulation foam to about a quarter-inch thickness, so I wind up starting with a small slab like so:


Then I mark out lines, 1/4 inch or a bit more wide and 3/4 inch long, in pencil or pen:


Then slice the pieces out using a steel ruler and the lines as the basic guide. They don't have to be exact at all, the more in-exact the more rustic and wild the final wall:


Now the crucial bit - the knife (typically a nice big utility blade) leaves really clean cuts, with very nice clean corners and edges. This needs to change, but I'm not going to spend the time treating each one individually. I pick up a bunch of the chunks as will comfortably fit into my hand and start rolling them around, applying moderate pressure:


After a few moments it wears down the sharp edges of the chunks and mashes them up enough to properly emulate bricks or stones:


A little stacking with some white PVC glue and I'm on my way to a fairly decent wall. I'll stick these structure to some plastic card, paint them with some white artist's gesso/primer (spray will deform the foam) to give more texture to them and add more details like actual sand to further the effect. Properly painted and drybrushed these make excellent terrain pieces and take very little time to finish:


Thanks for checking this out!

does insulation foam air-cure?

If not, then how do you cure them, if so, then how do you get scraps that aren't already cured?

It's the rigid pink foam insulation that comes from home improvement stores in big slabs. I use the 2 inch thick stuff.

Well... but how really rigid is it if you can sort of just smush it with your hands to deform it?

Seems like the terrain would be a single tumble off the table before it's just ruined.

I use a similar method and the end result is pretty sturdy. In all honesty I would be less worried about something built from insulation taking a spill than brittle plastic.

It's really light stuff though... If you drop it thre is little momentum built up and it will just bounce. A decent layer of paint will help it keep it's shape as well and for ruins, how perfect do you need the surface presentation to be anyway?

I'm just amused that the OP describes it as "pink foam" when it is obviously grey, unless the white balance of his camera is seriously messed up

White balance is totally off! Definitely go for the pink! Or some similar products have blue rigid foam.

It's very tough stuff, you do have to give a decent squeeze to rough up the edges but it beats having to sand or slice every single brick.

With decent amount of white glue and then at least two nice coats of acrylic primer (brushed on) it gets very strong. The foam provides the form and the glue and primer holds it together nicely.

I'll try to get a painted example up.

 Ailaros wrote:
Well... but how really rigid is it if you can sort of just smush it with your hands to deform it?

Seems like the terrain would be a single tumble off the table before it's just ruined.

its tougher than the foam they pack electronics in , BUT its still just foam , so like any foam terrain , so unless you treat it like its your new borm baby , it eventually wears down , scrapes , knicks , etc so you have to do touchups .



as with all terrain projects you have a choice of cheap and easy methods , which doesnt last aslong without substantial care (which most gamers dont show terrain) or more difficult and expensive materials that give more lasting results .

Quite so: if you're working on terrain that's going to see a lot of long-term wear, this method may be okay for shaping some integral blocks, but the final piece should then be cast in resin or plasters.

This method suits for assembling some basic walls in a short session in a single evening. Painting is additional time but overall it's very fast.

I have a lot of terrain made out of that exact foam. Yeah occationally I have to touch up the paint, but I've never had a problem with it breaking or anything. It holds up well and can look really good with a little effort put into it.

The pink/blue insulation foam has been a staple for terrain building for decades. Light weight, cheap, relatively durable if you are not just abusing you terrain and generally survives drops way better than plaster.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 GrandInquisitorOrdoXenos wrote:

 Ailaros wrote:
Well... but how really rigid is it if you can sort of just smush it with your hands to deform it?

Seems like the terrain would be a single tumble off the table before it's just ruined.

its tougher than the foam they pack electronics in , BUT its still just foam , so like any foam terrain , so unless you treat it like its your new borm baby , it eventually wears down , scrapes , knicks , etc so you have to do touchups .



as with all terrain projects you have a choice of cheap and easy methods , which doesnt last aslong without substantial care (which most gamers dont show terrain) or more difficult and expensive materials that give more lasting results .

I find it does not matter as much the material you use as it does the care given. I use everything from cardstock to resin cast and it all wears down under the abuse of gamers. The only one that has a noticeably shorter life span is cardstock, and then plaster if you have gamers that tend to drop terrain.