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My Walking Dead project kinda spiraled out of control and took over most of my workshop time. I've been binge-watching urban terrain how-to videos at the office all week and kinda got myself amped up to build some of my own this weekend. I kinda steal certain aspects of each tutorial I watch and patchwork them together (links to the relevant 2 at the end of this post). This is my first-ever foray into terrain and would love some tips/criticism by veteran terrain builders out there and if you can point me in the direction of tutorials or quality models for scatter terrain such as fire hydrants, bus stops, cars (to scale - 28mm minis), tree armatures, dumpsters, or just anything you think would look interesting, please let me know:

So far (in the following photos), I'm using layers of Elmer's foam board (if you know better foam board to use, please post!), matte black spray paint, cheapo acrylic tube paint (neutral grey, yellow, white, black), GW's agrax earthshade and administratum grey:

I started by drawing out 6 12" x 12" boards for the bases of each street module and drew on the different layouts:



I cut out the sidewalks, filed down a curve on the edge of the curb, scored the tiles, curb, and cracks in the concrete with a sculpey tool and a box cutter and glued the sidewalks on each tile. I primed it with matte black spray paint, dry-brushed the sidewalk with neutral grey and painted on the street lines:



Rinse/repeat on 5 other tiles:



...with action to show sidewalk height and general scale:



And now I'm starting on the wash/highlight for the sidewalk:



Over the next few weeks I plan on strategically adding flock/tufts/static grass poking out of cracks and curbs; adding gravel to the gutter, airbrushing and overlaying it with clear caulk I found at the hardware store for a murky water effect at the edges of the street (also adding this for puddles in certain potholes); and finally, building scatter terrain (planned: chain link fences, garbage cans, garbage bags, body bags, dumpsters, fire hydrants; shopping carts).

After I get these street modules finished off, I plan on putting together some modular buildings with removable levels for vertical play using foam/cork board, balsa wood and some super sculpey (this one is a full block -- 12" long):



I also tried my hand at sculpting a fire hydrant, but didn't get the scale right and clearly I need a lot of practice:



Here are the two video tutorials I took ideas from. Love both of these channels and strongly recommend subscribing:



Thanks for reading!!

Really nice work. The cracked pavements look really good. With regard to street furniture, TTCombat have some great resin pieces to add character. 4Ground also have a good city centre range.

Bloody great work! Subbed!

Thanks gents! Very much appreciate it. I'll keep posting as I progress.

 Flinty wrote:
Really nice work. The cracked pavements look really good. With regard to street furniture, TTCombat have some great resin pieces to add character. 4Ground also have a good city centre range.

Very good call on recommending TTCombat. They have quite an amazing selection of cityscape scatter terrain!

Anyone know of tree armature scaled to 28mm miniatures?

hasslefree do some:
http://www.hfminis.co.uk/shop?category=accessories~converting

I thought I saw trees on 4Ground. Or are they too complete?

If you're just after armature you could make your own pretty quickly.

 Flinty wrote:
I thought I saw trees on 4Ground. Or are they too complete?

If you're just after armature you could make your own pretty quickly.

They do, and really nice ones at that, but at 16 quid for 3 trees, I'll be broke before I finish a square block!

If the recipe is reasonably quick/cheap I'd love to learn how to build my own tree armatures. Do you have a recipe/link?

One here

http://www.beastsofwar.com/terrain/terrainscaping-awesome-tabletop-trees/

But this is more what I was thinking, using wire to make the trunk.and branches and covering in something to make it look like wood.

https://youtu.be/0FNQTxX_jT4

Might look cool to add just a couple small tufts of grass in one or two cracks, to get that "unmaintained for years" look. I wouldn't overdo it, though.

Quasistellar wrote:
Might look cool to add just a couple small tufts of grass in one or two cracks, to get that "unmaintained for years" look. I wouldn't overdo it, though.

Yeah I'm looking forward to applying that "unmaintained" look. Gonna poke some static grass/flock out of the concrete cracks in strategic areas and apply water effects for the murky, sludgy road gutters.

Tonight I was toying around with weathering effects using mostly GW washes and an interesting application of Army Painter's Quickshade. I wanted to have some very subtle water effects on the panels -- water in the gutters of the street and in the recesses of the cracks in the pavement, but it was too small to successfully use epoxy resin. It just didn't come out looking natural on a test board because of the thick consistency and the virtually nonexistent surface area it had to fill (I didn't cut a recess into the foam board for the water effects, so it was all on flat panel). I remember using Quickshade and how glossy it dried, so I globbed a bunch in the gutters with a q-tip to make small bubbles and get that watery effect. My only regret is not first airbrushing the gutters with a sandstone brown to mimic collection of dirt/dibris rolling off the street. That with the Strong Tone Quickshade would have made for a nice muddy, murky gutter, and certainly something I'm going to be doing moving forward.

Lastly, I mixed a dark grey and drybrushed each lane on the street moving from the middle outward, waited for it to dry, and then took Abbadon black and drybrushed the tire wear in the streets.

Static grass and flock of various colors from Woodland Scenics coming in the mail tomorrow so I'll be finishing up this first panel for sure.

Here's a side-by-side comparison of two standard two-way street panels -- one before weathering and one after:



Turned on the flash to try and get some of that glossy effect in the gutters, but my flash sucks, so this is the best I was able to get (trust me it's there!):



Gonna post pics tomorrow after I apply the "overgrown" effects with the flock/static grass.