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So building a board and have developed a growing addiction to fish tank plastic plants to create a bit of a death world.

Now my gaming buddies are ripping me hard and joking! i think they look cool though.

So i need an unbiased internet view, does this sort of stuff look stupid as terrain?

Needs a little scale, hard to tell how big they are exactly though the 28mm base kinda tells a little. some of them are too big. if a human was standing text to some of them the leaves would be the size of a car. i mean they are alien plants but still.

i do love the purple clusters though in the second picture.

especially the one on the left.

Looks cool for an alien deathworld. Perhaps a bit too bright, but one can never know what to expect on a deathworld. Don't let their joking bring you down. This is your hobby and you can build, paint and decorate how you like.

And what does their terrain look like?

There are BIG plants on earth, so alien ones could be as BIG too. Look up pattaraporn boonchoopirach, Victoria amazonica and Gunnera manicata.

Few more to scale. Yea I thought looked fine too..

They look fine, and silly is good. Wild and colorful is also good, terrain can be bright!

Short version: Looks fine.

Long version: You need to consider that people looking for 40k terrain primarily take a direction that immediately reads grim dark at a casual glance. Skill and devotion to terrain building/painting aside, 40k tends to get pretty bleak terrain. Seeing colorful and vibrant jungle terrain is not something that many people immediately associate with 40k.

Which, of course, is not objectively correct. Death Worlds can have oh so many colors and still be just as deadly. Possibly more so if the jungle looks nicer and more peaceful than it really is.

The one thing to consider with fish tank plants that may be an actual concern is that they come in a certain painting style and usually in a material that makes it hard to paint over, so depending on how your armies and the rest of the board look, they might actually look off.

If you wanted a fix for that, you might consider basing the plants and giving them a little buffer zone between their vibrancy and whatever drab board and other terrain you have that allows you to tie them in better. Even if it's just painted sand, that sand would match the sand on other terrain pieces, models' bases and possibly even your board. It would take out that hard edge factor that putting down the plants straight out of the box.

I have a few myself and think they look cool.
I wouldnt over do them though unless you're specifically going for a weird alien plant based world-vibe type thingy.

Cheers for the comments yea thought about basing them gonna mix in terrain like this I just built, painted a little less bright to tone it down.

Reason for this board is exactly that... to much grim dark. 40k used to have all sorts of battlefields esp in gw stores. They lost all that when gw started making terrain

Yea just add some bases to them and it looks alright. It nails that alien world look with ease too, so go for it

No they don't look silly, but I do recommend some work to make them more in tone with 28mm miniatures and less associated with aquarium fake plants. I simply cut mine down and clean up the mold lines, then apply them on a suitable base and flock some sand and added resin basing kits, painted them up and flock on some moss.

No dude, those look GREAT. Anyone giving you grief doesn't have enough imagination to deserve to play this game.

The biggest issue with aquarium plants is that some are not detailed enough for the scale, or are too neon.
The ones you've pictured do not seem to have this problem and give a very good "exotic jungle" feel to the board.

It actually bother me more when tables have "earth-like" boring terrain.

-

Hey, if GW can use aquarium plants in their official media sights, then so can you!

 Mr Nobody wrote:
Hey, if GW can use aquarium plants in their official media sights, then so can you!

I wonder if the producers of those plants decided to contact GW in regards to them using their plants in advertising without consent? Lol.


On topic, they look great.
Death world boards always have looked better to me as most of the time, it's just bland table.
It's nice to get a good mix of colours there as it really stands out.

Unless it's some 3 foot tall plant slapped in the middle of the table, it looks fine.



I would advise anyone that wants them to hit eBay though.
Most aquariums charge a fortune for them where as eBay is around 1/4 of the price.

They're fine.

Sure, painting them a little more GrimDark (e.g. with black or dark brown washes) would help avoid the Happy Rainbow Unicorn look which offends some - although be aware that soft plastic (these are probably polythene) doesn't stick to paint well.

And you could maybe add some GrimDark detail? - plants with fangs and giant thorns, the skeletal remains of their victims, warning signs, etc.

I like em!

They look good to me. I was thinking of getting some myself - though smaller ones i could break up to use on bases.

If they are a bit bright a wash would tone them down a little and make any molded veins and folds standout. Its not necessary but a little customisation never hurts.

I like using aquarium plants for terrain. They make your table feel like it is really an alien planet.

I think they're great - although as has been said, you can make them even more great with a little work. Ultimately it comes down to how they work with the rest of your table.

Very interesting! I never even thought about using those for an alien death world..... I agree with most / all comments here... Base em and maybe add some light paints and/or wash to grim it up even just a bit. Like something straight out of Rick n Morty.

 cmcorms wrote:
Very interesting! I never even thought about using those for an alien death world..... I agree with most / all comments here... Base em and maybe add some light paints and/or wash to grim it up even just a bit. Like something straight out of Rick n Morty.

I think they look great and if you had some drab ruins or something like it, might look even better.

I love the episode where they throw the party.

I'd suggest you mix some of the brighter plants in with others( to add variety and so there is not an overly large contrast between clumps of foliage(as in real life you get plants of different colours etc but they do not all grow in one place by colour code)) but the plants themselves looks good. In my view they are cool and compared with the official games workshop killteam deathworld plant/ trees (which I am not a fan of) are not silly looking.



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If you're going to put washes on them I'd give them a liberal spray or two(the more the merrier) with hairspray to lacquer over the paint(and hopefully protect it) I found that it worked to a degree.
(in that I actually had to try to scrape the paint off with a knife before it came away(that was 2 sprays)

Absolutely no worse than the kill team Death World Forrest. And you don’t have to paint them!!

I would recommend a good flat spray on them to kill the shine. Plants don't generally reflect light like plastic does.

 Vulcan wrote:
I would recommend a good flat spray on them to kill the shine. Plants don't generally reflect light like plastic does.

Depends. A lot of tropical plants with broad leaves have thick waxy layers on them which makes them look shiny. It can actually make you even think they are artificial when they are very real.

I think they look great!

I have vague plans for making a Death world board myself, and aquarium plants will likely feature when I finally get the funds to build it.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Vulcan wrote:
I would recommend a good flat spray on them to kill the shine. Plants don't generally reflect light like plastic does.

Depends. A lot of tropical plants with broad leaves have thick waxy layers on them which makes them look shiny. It can actually make you even think they are artificial when they are very real.

As does moisture- if this jungle is a rainforest, there is a good chance it will be damp too.

By definition, a jungle is a rainforest. Not all rainforests are jungles though

Aquarium plants are fine but you might want to cut them down to make the scale work better, and they do benefit from a darker wash. The reason people paint aquarium plants is not because they're in love with a grimdark aesthetic but because aquarium plants tend to be very shiny and bright and uniformly coloured which makes them look like plastic rather than plants, a wash adds depth and richness and helps create the illusion of scale. I've never had any difficulties painting directly on to aquarium plants personally but I see a number of people saying they've had issues with them not taking paint so your mileage may vary.

 Grey Templar wrote:
By definition, a jungle is a rainforest. Not all rainforests are jungles though

On Earth Fair point though, bit of trivia to store away for the future

There is temperate rainforest in the UK, which is definitely not jungle! Very mossy places though, they look pretty even when its raining.

I've used aquarium plants, often, and it's generally a matter of cutting them (to brush, trees, etc.depending on the scales required) and basing them nicely.
I also find that a simple wash (sepia or olive) and then a quick satin or matte spray can really make them look wonderful on the tabletop.