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Well, I got the terrain itch...I just couldn't resist it anymore. 

I started a new project for no good reason past I wanted to.  This time around I'm taking a crack at a nature based table.  I'm trying for a rolling foothills look.  We'll see how successful it is.

I went surfing for some research and help with the basic layout of the table and came across this from Terragenesis:

for more on the image check out http://www.terragenesis.co.uk/gallery/image.php?id=467
I ended up using that as a base for my table layout since it pretty much fit perfectly with what I was going for. 


On to the WIP pics:

Gluing the base foamboard down to the MDF for support.


I used toothpicks for each level in addition to glue to help secure them in place. 


And here is the final layout!


More WIP photos to follow.  And I'll try and post more intent/research photos as well.

Enjoy the ride!

Just wanted to add a little bit of photoshop stuff:

This is how the hills will be once I start working on the slopes for them.  Well at least this is the intent.  We'll see how it works in practice. 

looks like a great start! is the bottom part going to be some water feature like a lake or pond ? AMPHIBIOUS ASSAULT!! anyone?

I would vote against sloping the hills...

Maybe not what you want to hear, but slopes and minis don't mix, IMHO. It will certainly LOOK way nice with the slopes, but you only spend so long looking at a table before you stop worrying about what it looks like, and start thinking about how to play on it. No matter how nice a table looks, if models keep falling over, breaking off their weapons, etc. etc. you'll eventually grow to hate it.

Instead, I'd just clean the edges up with a little spackle putty (or similar) to blend the seams together, maybe put a slight bevel on the top edges, and go with it. It will look less realistic, but if you make it clear that it's stylized, it can actually look pretty cool.

Isn't slopy no slopy based on game?

Slopy = bad for top-heavy 28mm models.

Slopy = good for WHFB movement trays and low center of gravity models (15mm and the like)

Cool!

Jagged cliffs would work too, as long as everyone agrees it's not difficult terrain. Sloping the pieces is going to move the hills further to the edge and not further to the center as you illustrate. Not necessarily bad, but something to consider. What kind of move-able terrain are you going to use with this to make it have some variert? It will need to ve relativly small give to lots of placement options.

Hrm.  Good points made by all x.x...I think I will end up going with the steps instead of slopes.  I want it playable.  And I'm expecting to only really be playing 40k. 

I think I'll just try and bevel the edges a bit and smooth them out as Phryxis suggested. 

As for additional terrain, I'm really not sure yet.  I want trees and the like, but I'm not sure if I'm going to make them a permanent part of the table or not yet.  But this comes back to having a playable table.  So this might swing towards any and all additions past undergrowth being movable instead of in static. 

Oh and for color scheme, I'm thinking of making it an Autumn scene.  The Dakka store had an autumn table and I loved it.  I think I want to pay homage to said table ^_^;.  I'm just not certain what kind of ground cover to go with in that sort of color scheme.  Any thoughts?

Looks nice! I agree with you and Phyrixis on the slopes. A little bevel and a little spackle will work much better for gaming.

You?re going to want movable wood and ruin templates to break up LOS. The biggest issue with this kind of table is always that long ranged shooters on the high ground can see over almost everything, so you need some size three area terrain to break it up and make the game tactical.

Wakarus was the name of the old Dakka (RIP) store autumn table. You can get fall-colored moss and flock from Woodland Scenics and similar companies. For the majority of the play surface you?re going to want to go with the usual textured paint/glued-on sand, I think. This gives the table some texture but doesn?t break off easily. The problem with covering the table with any real nice texture/scatter is that it?s going to be breaking and flaking off constantly.

This issue aside, since you?re talking about going for a Fall look, recently I also learned about another awesome product called leaf litter, which you can see used on some model bases in the following thread:

http://warhammer.org.uk/PhP/viewtopic.php?t=30002&start=0

Here?s a great article from Reaper:
http://www.reapermini.com/TheCraft/24

Here?s a diorama:
http://www.thelastalliance.com/index.php?pid=article&articlefilename=dioramasthewhitewizard&catid=1&subid=26&artilceid=206&printerfriendly=1

And another:
http://www.hyperscale.com/features/2000/js2jb_1.htm


Here?s a place that sells it in the UK, but I?m sure you can get it in the US as well:
http://www.barrule.com/workshop/scratch%20builders%20paradise/leaves,%20feuilles,%20blatter,%20fogli.html

The only problem with this stuff is that it almost certainly won?t stand up under traffic on a high use play surface. But it gets the best looking fall ground effects I?ve ever seen. Maybe it?d work tucked into the base of some of those hills, and at the bases of the trees and walls on the forest and ruin templates

I thought litter was for cats and tourist attractions?

As Ragnar says, the terrain need to be mobile or the table gets boring fast.  As far as fall theming goes, I have a fall themed table in case it give you ideas.  Admittedly, I skipped the fall foliage on the ground, but I think that's for the best in terms of play.

 

A final better shot of the contours, etc:

Man, thanks a ton for all the great reference stuff guys. 

Thanks for the reminder about the leaf little Ragnar, I couldn't remember for the life of me what that stuff was called but knew it was out there.  Now to see about getting a bag or so >.>...

I'm definitely going to work on putting together some clumps of trees and add in some ruins as well.  Maybe some stone walls and such like back in new england, I miss going out into the wilderness only to find old run down walls and buildings.  And I'll be making them modular/movable as much as I'd love to make this thing like a diorama, I have to remind myself I'm building it at the apex of playability and looks, and sacrifices have to be made x.x...And I can always make each piece of movable terrain a small diorama in itself!

I'll be trying to get some spackle and edging done tonight.  We'll see how much gets completed.  Updates to come.

Ok, I got started on the slopes/edges of the hills.  Ran out of spackle so I'll have to head to the Home Depot sometime tomorrow after work.  But this is what I'm gonna go with, I'll end up rounding them out some with sand paper after it's all dried out. 




They end up feeling like a compromise between my original idea of long overgrown slopes and the hard edged drop offs I see a lot of folks go with.  I think once the corners are a bit more rounded they'll really start to look just right. 

Thoughts?

Looks good to me! That's a LOT of spacke and can get heavy. I usually add the slope to the foam itself and spackle the cracks. The foam sands well, too.

I like it, man i wish me and my friends made that kind of table. (we use the floor and text books...) : P

Posted By scarab on 09/10/2007 7:22 PM
Looks good to me! That's a LOT of spacke and can get heavy. I usually add the slope to the foam itself and spackle the cracks. The foam sands well, too.

Yeah normally I try and work with filler materials to build up the area before spackle goes down.  But I guess I'm just lazy and I know this will do the trick >.>....

I figure I'll snag one more container of the stuff and finish this bit tomorrow. 

As for the weight, I'm really not too concerned...I based it on 1/2 MDF board...

Posted By Rogen on 09/10/2007 7:32 PM
I like it, man i wish me and my friends made that kind of table. (we use the floor and text books...) : P

You guys should really look into it.  It's relatively inexpensive to build what I've got here so far.  You can even cut out the spackle to cut out some time and cost.  Throw some textured paint over it all and you've got one heck of a quick table.  Spray paint for some variation and you're golden. 

Last of the spackle sloping.  Now...to let it cure...this might take a little while...

In the meantime, I need to start thinking over the layout of the ground cover and detailing for said ground. 

I'm not sure if I should put a road on any of the board or not, maybe just paint on some light trails instead. 

I also need to start thinking of colors. 

So short list:
Ground Cover types and Layout
Base colors and Highlighting colors
Movable terrain types and materials needed

Here are some research photos I've plucked from the interwebs for your consumption.




If anyone has comments or ideas please, feel free to chime in!  I'm still very open to suggestions for the board right now!  I need the Dakka communities feedback! 

Now, where is my sand paper...

Looks good. In the future I'd recommend cutting the bevels directly into the layers before you glue them together instead of using filler. You may have problems with the spackle cracking and separating as it dries and also from any bumps the table may take over it's lifespan.

I also recommend against sanding down the corners any. Keep them nice and sharp to give a stable surface for your mini's. On the first hill I ever made I made the mistake of rounding the edges. I was left with so little space flat enough to support a mini that the hill was all but useless.

Posted By Arstahd on 09/11/2007 7:51 PM
Looks good. In the future I'd recommend cutting the bevels directly into the layers before you glue them together instead of using filler. You may have problems with the spackle cracking and separating as it dries and also from any bumps the table may take over it's lifespan.

I also recommend against sanding down the corners any. Keep them nice and sharp to give a stable surface for your mini's. On the first hill I ever made I made the mistake of rounding the edges. I was left with so little space flat enough to support a mini that the hill was all but useless.

I'm actually sort of planning on having to do some touch up work on the spackle.  I kind of realized what I did well after the fact and just kinda went with it and I'll have to fix any issues that might pop up. 

As for sanding the edges, I'm not planning on making them super rounded, just enough to give more of a rolling hill feel.  I'll probably be able to show that tomorrow when the first stage of spackle starts to dry enough that I can start working on it a bit.  Plus with the table more than likely being relegated to skirmish duty, I'm not real worried about having the 1/8th an inch of space back, though it is a small concern as I move forward with the sanding. 

Cool. I like the photos of colorful ground cover. If you look at the table suface pics I posted, I think you can see that there are green areas with a splotchy ground cover with some decent texture to it. First, I always put sand down by simply sprinking it onto the wet base coat of latex paint - saves a step. Second, if you get the sand damp, it sprinkles in little clumps looking like foot-high ground cover. You might want to sprinkle some of that in!

I know your planning on an Autumn setting but when I see your table so far I envision a snowy forest with that huge opening in the middle being an iced over lake....

just my thoughts though, great work so far!

Well, it's been a long week.  But I've finally gotten some time to sit down and work a bit on my table. 

Throughout the week I was sanding and shaping the spackle and edges of the foam.  Rounding and contouring them into each other so they didn't look like two separate pieces glued together x.x.  This was somewhat time consuming, but it all smoothed out nicely and I'm pretty happy with the contours now.  I think now that I've got some paint on it all though, that I could have curved the edges even more than I did, but that's just a personal taste really. 

I put down some sand in splotchy patterns across the table trying to give some large ground cover over different sections of the table, I focused on some spots where the spackle had some issues to sort of hide where I got lazy or messed it up >.>...after that I laid down a light coat of paint to start getting an idea of what it was all looking like.  When that was dry, I mixed up some textured paint and set to adding some texture around the sand covered areas to blend them in more to the table.  This took 2 splashes of paint to each of the sand covered areas and it was well worth the time spent.  They now work in seamlessly to the table without any hard edges.

I then added a coat of textured paint across the entire table.  When the first coat was dried, I added one more coat to fill everything in a bit more.  Which brings us to the pictures.  I took these almost directly after finishing the second coat, so it is still quite wet in the picture.  I'll post newer 'dry' photo's when everything is completely dry again. 




This is obviously not going to be the base color of the table.  I had to destroy a paint with texture so I chose that one.  I'll be going back over this with a darker color and highlighting. 

Note: to keep from getting streak lines in your paint as you're laying down some paint on your table, be sure you go back over the entire thing in a 'dabbing' motion, bringing the paint brush directly up and down on the table.  This will break up the streak marks and help even it all out and even give you a tad more texture to your project.

Next up:  More paint >.>...

Thoughts and comments welcome as always!

Nice! This going to be one sweet table. Is the texture something commercial or just sand mixed in the paint?

Posted By scarab on 09/16/2007 2:27 PM
Nice! This going to be one sweet table. Is the texture something commercial or just sand mixed in the paint?

It's commercial paint texture.  I picked it up at The Home Depot years ago.  It's Bondex brand 'Roll-A-Tex'.  I snagged the 'Fine' version but they sell medium and coarse as well.  It's a real time saver, and works better than normal sand because it suspends itself in the paint and doesn't sink to the bottom. 

Thanks for the tip.

Painted the sides up.  And like I promised, dry pictures. 





Model was thrown on there for scale of course ^_-. 

Currently working out ground cover ideas.  I'm going to be hitting up the old hobby lobby and raiding their woodland scenics stuff.  Should prove interesting.  After analyzing some of my research pictures and going over Scarabs table, I'll be going with a dark flesh/bestial brown'ish base color. 

I've also started working on the flat drop off face in the basin.  I should have done this before adding texture and paint.  But at least I'm doing it!  Here is a WIP Shot:



I'll be scraping and sculpting it into more rocks and adding sand and textured paint once that's all finished.

Thanks for watchin so far!  Still a long way to go!

How did you texture that surface so well? Is that stucco?

One of my biggest problems when making terrain is finding ways to not make whatever I'm building look like cardboard or Styrofoam with paint.

Fantastic work so far, GD. Keep it up.

CK

He says it's a textured paint. You can get it at Home Depot and the like.

Very cool. I think my wallet just groaned a little bit.

Off to Home Depot...tomorrow

CK

I am interested to see how that little cliff works out on the whole. Could be a nice little touch.