Terrain Crafting Projects

[Weltenlaeufer]

Little crafting project for a mountainboard for outside encounters!
After I am done I gonna craft some simple hazards and rockformations so I can rebuild the board each time with different constellations and hazards.

I used 2 inch thick xps styrofoam.

I went freehand with an exactoknife for the grid so it looks more natural.







Used a D4 to punch in structure at the crosslines



Mystical spiral





Black Primer



Added Multipe layers in grey with a sponge

[torilen]

Okay - so what kind of styrofoam and what kind of paint did you use? What combination?
I was under the understanding that if you put spray paint on styrofoam, it melts it. No?
That looks really good - and I ALWAYS have access to styrofoam, so I could easily start working
on a massive collection of foundations.

[whitebeard]

Okay - so what kind of styrofoam and what kind of paint did you use? What combination?
I was under the understanding that if you put spray paint on styrofoam, it melts it. No?
That looks really good - and I ALWAYS have access to styrofoam, so I could easily start working
on a massive collection of foundations.

It is usually the propellant in the spray paint which melts foam. So if you don't get up too close, you won't melt anything. Also a small amount of melting might help add texture / smooth the tearing effect you see here from the knife. A dull pencil or ball point pen is also good for adding grid type lines. That said, I have never used spray paint on my foam terrain and like many other crafters out there, I use Mod-Podge and black paint as a primer on my foam and cardboard models.

Speaking of texture, The paint job added a lot of wonderful texture here. You may get there easier by flipping the piece upside down on a driveway and stepping on it a few times, then moving to a couple different locations and doing it again. I have a fist sized piece of asphalt I use as a hammer to texture pieces but more recently I just stepped on a piece in my textured garage floor and got what I wanted.

Very nice finished piece!

[Weltenlaeufer]

Thanks torilen! Yes thats what I heard too thats why I used just normal black acrylic paint as a first coat without primer. It looks like it worked, I hope it stays on. There are different types of styrofoam, the one that is made of little bubbles (when you break it apart) and the one I used which is XPS styrofoam. Get XPS, thats what terrain crafters use, cause you can just easily cut ino it, and it looks good.

And thanks whitebeard! That tip with the asphalt texture is great, also finding a piece and using it to carve it is a great tip! I used this little stonetextured miniature ball and rolled it on the surface a few times. Crafting is really fun, it sparks my creative thinking. I have all these ideas of what I wanna make all of a sudden! :D I want to create hazards and stone and rock formations next, so I can use it with the board. I saw somewhere online that some people use sprayfoam to build rocks and such, I gotta check into this! Fun projects!

[Weltenlaeufer]

Here is my the first bit of scatter terrain I build after I finished the board. Still need to add one more highlight layer to the rocks. I also got more in the making, already basecoated cause I got really excited about the possibilities

So the cool thing with this project is, that I finally will be able to create GIANT rooms and encounters. The scale it can convey is great. It gives this mines of moria/lordoftherings feeling. Also the fact that the board can be reset and immediately used as the next room, rearranging and adding things. I also see the possibilities of working with terrain pieces like this in a negative space kinda way with a black cloth underneath simulating the abyss. Underdark encounters!

[Kurgan]

Great suggestions and pretty impressive effects with these found objects and inexpensive materials. I've seen this sort of thing done before and it's pretty amazing what you can do!

[Weltenlaeufer]

Thanks Kurgan!

[Weltenlaeufer]

[whitebeard]

Those stairs...
> "Nobody tosses a DWARF!"

> "Not the BEARD!"

Well done.

[Weltenlaeufer]

Those stairs...
> "Nobody tosses a DWARF!"

> "Not the BEARD!"

Well done.

YESSSS!!! Thanks whitebeard!