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Hey there! So I've recently been itching for a hobby challenge and realized something I haven't tried yet was building terrain. I'd like to get a list of necessary materials and where I can find them. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Anything really.

You might want to head over to the LoER competition thread. There are links there to past events. Plenty of good advice and ideas to mine.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/683041.page

I’m just getting started myself. One thing that is useful and I’m experimenting is rigid foam insulation. That and a hot wire cutter is a classic combo for hills and the like. I’m working on a Eldar webway gate.

That entirely depends on what you want to build. Common terrain building materials might be polystyrene foam, plasticard, foam core (foam sandwiched between plastic sheets), MDF, plywood, sand, PVA glue.

But I'm certainly not suggesting you go out and buy all that stuff, start with an idea of what you want to make and figure out the materials from there!

 l0k1 wrote:
Hey there! So I've recently been itching for a hobby challenge and realized something I haven't tried yet was building terrain. I'd like to get a list of necessary materials and where I can find them. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

as they said above me

I'd also recommend channels like DMScotty, The Terrain Tutor on youtube - some great (and cheap) advice, also overviews of products you might want to specifically try and how to use them. Also check out Model Railroading channels (I like Luke Towan's a lot) and sites.

One of the easiest things to start with (and really useful!) is walls. Always good for scatter terrain.

Hills are good too.

I wouldn't run out and buy a lot of stuff. I would however be looking at stuff people throw out! you'd be amazed how much you can do with treasure finds like that. I'll even pick up bits of metal off the ground, parts left over from people working on powerlines or whatever - it can all be used for something.

At the beginning, the best materials to buy/find, and the stuff you'll find most useful regardless of what you end up building, is:

corkboard - good for bases, for a good dirt/rock/pavement substrate
PVA - save you some time maybe, I didn't know what that was when I started. It's just white glue, aka polyvinyl(sp) acetate also known as Elmer's, etc
foam board - good straight up for buildings (ruined or not), soak 1/2 off (I just lay a wet washcloth on one side and come back later), peel and texture to make various walls/floors
sand/rock - many ways to get this, some cheap some not. Get your own (wash it though) or buy some playground, or the "actual" miniature oriented stuff (difference tends to be less difference in size of particles for miniature stuffs compared to playground sand or colored decor sand).
And probably some 1/4" or 3 to 4 mm MDF pieces. - This is for the base. Don't use foamboard it WILL bow and ruin your lovely piece :( You can cut it yourself, get some scrap from the home depot type store, or have them cut it for you. It's strong and durable. However, when working with it, like a lot of our stuff, DO NOT breath in particles. Wear a mask if you're cutting it, or sanding it. Takes primer well, paint as well. (You can also use balsa wood, or craft plywood, but they do tend to end up more expensive overall in my experience. One benefit is, though, you can find a lot more precut sizes, closer to what you might want to use and if you can't cut stuff yourself, it helps.)


you can check craft stores, dollar stores, goodwill, the side of the curb, bigger stores like Wal Mart or what have you. Items from stuff specifically made for minatures, to kids toys, to dollar store junk, to aquarium pieces, to things meant for scrapbooking - you will find a lot can be used for terrain as well.

Compare prices. No need to pay an arm and a leg for most things. See if there's a hobby store + coupon they'll take. Things like that get you more materials for the same price ^_^

So, yeah lots of stuff!

Thanks for the info.

At the moment I have a few ideas I'd like to try. A water fountain modeled similar to the one near the game store, a ruined stretch of road with a blown up rhino, possibly some CSM or Eldar inspired stuff.

Currently I do have some of the materials (cork, flock, sand, small rocks, pva glue)

As Guildestern said, building terrain is generally a scrounger's dream. Look at scrap, imagine what you could make out of it, and let loose your creativity.

Most of my terrain is Tau buildings made from stuff like cheap plastic Japanese soup bowls, yoghurt cartons, shampoo bottles, and the packaging that Marks & Spencer Chinese dim sum snacks come in.

The most expensive item I actually bought was a large acrylic chips and dip bowl that I made into a skimmer landing pad.

Personally I've always struggled to make regular household junk look anything other than regular household junk. If I use a bottle cap because I need something round, it'll always look like a bottle cap, if I use a GW sprue for something it'll always look like a GW sprue because of the distinctive shape, as a kid I built a WHFB castle and used scrap bits to make it and it's so hard to hide that it was made from scrap.

For that reason I tend to just buy the raw materials and try and realise my vision from scratch rather than modifying existing objects. They usually aren't that expensive because us gamers typically only want small amounts compared to what they're usually used for.

Sounds like folks have got you covered for the kind of projects you want to make. Most of my terrain comes from salvaged and converted toys and other bits. "Toybashing" if you will. I learned nearly everything I know from Sean Patten's "Necromundicon" pages at ironhands.com

You can see a pretty good collection of all my work and lots of DIY hints here:
https://yaktribe.org/community/threads/eilifs-urban-terrain-update-jan-21-cheap-shipping-containers.2975/