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Hello guys and gals, I've been tasked with helping to make some terrain for our Bolt Action group at the FLGS. Issue is I've never made terrain before, but with the help of the Terrain Tutor, I've managed to make some things.

Overall I am satisfied with the outcome although I used several techniques that were completelt foreign to me. For example, paper mache. Albeit paper mache with paper towels which led to an unsatisfactory end result due to them having texture.

The pieces that I am showing started off as expanding foam, the kind you get to insulate windows. With the use of a bread knife I cut them into rough shapes, then glued them to foamboard bases. After which I covered them in the paper mache, unhappy with the texture I applied spackle to that before finally painting.

I plan to make an African set and also a Japanese set as well. Criticism is welcome and appreciated.

I take it the first photo is a road ? The easiest way to create them is by buying reels of rubber off fleabay for next to nothing. The rubber can be easily cut to size and glue sand onto it for texture.

For trench line sections I would just use styrene stuck down to mdf. Styrene is ready available everywhere and easy to paint if you coat in layer of masonry paint(masonry paint is always on the reduced shelf at your local diy store). An mdf base is not always neccessary.

For foliage,trees etc use rubberised horse hair or fish tank filters. They can be cut to shape and then spray them green and just stick on scatter with pva glue .

Hope this helps and good luck with the terrain. Looks like your doing ok so far.

Like darkness screamer has said the horse hair is great stuff. You can also get it as plant pot liners, i use it a little differently in as I spray it brown then cover it from the top down with a spray can glue, add the flock then hit it with a cheap spray varnish or a couple coats of watered pva.
My view is that it looks a lot better than clump foliage too. Don’t forget to hit the pound stores or dollar stores in the states for all the cheap glues and bits, as they are a gold mine for stuff like that.

I haven't heard of rubberized horsehair before, but after looking it up it looks like this material that I never knew the name of before. In the search I also saw a tutorial for making hedges out of it, looks like really good stuff to have available so I'll probably pick some up next month or so.


I have heard of the water/PVA spray, I definitely need to do that on these pieces before I subject them to play. MDF is something I aspire to get to at some point, I don't readily trust myself to work with it for now, but it does look fantastic as all get out. Maybe when its a bit nicer and I can work more in my garage I'll get to that, For now I'm still struggling with foamboard.

Another thought for roads is to use malthoid style damp course its 2-ply felt impregnated with bitumen covered in sand, so its pre textured, rolls flat, is cheap and very easy to work with (you can tear it with your fingers). Its great for unpaved roads after painting.

So I had a bit of an issue with some of my terrain, more importantly its the trench system that I made before. It has seemed to have bowed and now sits roughly an inch above a flat surface on both sides. My gamble is to take some more pieces of foam and use those to fill in the gaps before covering with some spackle and then going from there. Hopefully it will look like they dug a trench out of a mound or something.

I plan on getting either mdf or balsa to use as bases in my next go ahead for these projects. I currently have a large foam mound that I am planning on making into two smaller bunkers. Or one bunker a la the D-Day coastal bunkers. But I think two smaller square bunkers are good for now, especially with my limited skill set.

MDF can warp and balsa . I use plasticard which can be expensive but not if you buy it in bulk.

I only use mdf for bases of terrain boards these days and they are supported by 2x2 battens that surround a jablite core.

Try brushing a load of pva to the back of the piece bud, as it drys and shrinks it might just sort out some of the warping you’ve got. As for mdf the thinnest I’ve used for making bases for terrain is 6mm.

Not had any issues with warping so far, as darkness said it can and will warp if it’s to thin but then I also try not to use too much pva glue in my terrain building. Generally il use contact glues or spray glues that don’t shrink so there’s not any shrinking when drying.

Also just a quick note bud with the mdf, wear a mask when cutting it as its kicks up some nasty dust that gets everywhere.