The Tale of Terrain Builders 2012-2013 – Month1: September WIP

[Little Joe]

The Tale of Terrain Builders 2012-2 – Month1: September WIP

What is it all about?
The aim of The Tale of Terrain Builders is to help motivate those involved to start and complete enough scenery to fill a gaming board. It is an ongoing project for all, who want to participate.

How does it work?
During the first week of a month you post your finished terrain. The remainder of the month is for posting WIP pictures of what you are building and to comment on the work of other participants.
Ask Questions, see many different interesting ideas and help others with tutorials and advice.

What do I have to do?
Because not everyone can spare the same amount of time for various reasons, there are different levels of commitment. The standard level of commitment (Mens) is to create a single, reasonably sized piece of terrain per month. The lesser level of commitment (Boys) requires the completion of a piece of terrain every other month, but with the commitment to show progress each month! In order to have a level of participation for everyone there is also the Apprentice level, for this you just have to finish one piece of scenery.
A single piece of scenery at least the size of a hill or building will be considered one piece. A barricade, tree, rock spire or similar terrain can be entered in threes to count as one piece of scenery. I made a picture for a quick overview:



If in doubt, terrain that covers a diameter of roughly 6” is what we are going for, but this is a loose definition. Since the aim is to fill your board with terrain the rules are somewhat lenient.
A note on building whole Tables and Dioramas: simply break it down in monthly amounts of work for the level of commitment you entered in and we are happy to tell you what we think of it.
Just build and have fun and everything should be OK!

Can I have a break?
Because people have real lives: “yes you can!”. You get one 'Joker', to use for a month you want to skip. During the Tale you can ‘play a joker’ by posting an appropriate picture and an explanation if you like. You should still comment if you have the time.
But the other five months you have to come up with a piece of completed scenery or some WIP pictures. That sounds easy but the first two tales prove it is not.

In six months we will all end up with some terrain for gaming, which is awesome!

Frequently Asked Questions

Q : How do I join the Tale of Terrain Builders 2012?
A : You should join us right now! Just post in this thread and you are in, it starts that easy… Since Apprentice is just one piece, you can also join any time you like.

Q : Can I build more than one piece per month?
A : Yes, you can build as much as you like. The maximum you can enter is two pieces a month and they will be awarded as such. We aim to have fun as a group and to help each other as much as get things done ourselves.

Q : What happens if I build a GIGANTIC piece of scenery?
A : If you create a truly epic piece of scenery, we want to see it. We also want to see how it is done so you use months of WIP up to the finishing post and it will be accounted for the epic piece it is that way.

Q : Can I include a short narrative with each months post.
A : Yes, we love background stuff! Write as much as you like, we will read it and rejoice. It might also help to put the piece of scenery in perspective.

If you have any questions, please PM me and I will answer them as soon as possible.

[Little Joe]

The participants who signed up for this tale:



WIP is for work in progress.
bigWip is for work in progress that counts as a full months work (Mens) or two for Boys
done is for finished pieces. This counts for two months work for Boys
done (+1) counts for two full months for Mens (4! for Boys)
Joker is a joker and J's are for default (not requested) jokers.

As you can see in the opening post the Noob level is now called Apprentice (I noted the Master/Journeyman rename as an improvement to vote over for the next tale). Votes were accepted by simple majority so the only other option that made is the duration of this Tale. Six months it is from now on.

It is good to see participation for this tale remains strong, so welcome to all the newcomers and good luck, it is a tough Tale.

[Little Joe]

For this Tale I want to make a skirmish 3D board, that will also be a lid to a box with a second lid to get a storage system for these boards. This one will be 90x90cm (about 3'x3') and height should vary from a few centimetres to about 30cm.

Board one ideas and thoughts

All will be kept generic to allow cross over for many game systems. To get the character going there will be special attention to details and I hope to convey a nice "horror" mood with this board when done (mainly achieved by a choice of colours and details). This board will remain skull free (possible exception tomb stones)!

Inspirational input:
• The GW Vanhal scenario from WD also contained within the Warhammer Annual 2002 on page 116-118. Basically a vampire rests in a mausoleum on the cemetery, but there are two and you need to kill it preferably before it wakes.
• Mordheim
• Malifaux

Materials needed:
• The basic board/complete box;
• Two citadel woods;
• A Renadra graveyard set;
• Two LOTR Moria starter terrain sets;
• Buildings for which I will use Tabletop World;
• A bridge, still looking for the right one;
• More tomb stones;

I started by creating a map in a 1:1 scale by just putting existing terrain on a piece of paper, step 1:



step 2:



The Mausoleum seen will be taken apart and rebuilt on this board with a counter piece.
The creek and the wall divide the board in three parts. Both will have crossings/breaches. In the other direction the road will be slightly higher and blocks line of sight sometimes.

The lower part will feature a swamp and a part of the settlement.
The middle part has some buildings and a few trees, maybe one big hanging tree.
The graveyard has two mausoleums, both with a cellar and lies on the top of a hill.

For working on this board there are effectively three parts: the swamp, the graveyard and the settlement.

First I will have to make the box. I gave myself until next weekend to get the needed wood and putting it together. That will be this month's work.
Then to work on the swamp, the roads and the walls. Followed by the graveyard, which will get a lot of attention and because I am waiting on Tabletop World to supply me with the buildings for the settlement this will be tackled last (I want to use the three new buildings for the small purse, only one currently available).

Wish me success!

[Erazmus_M_Wattle]

Okay so for the last few years I've been a busy dad of three lively wee boys. It didn't leave me much energy left at night to actually get much painting done. I got modelling done which I've always enjoyed more. But somehow painting just leaves me cold when I'm shattered.

So I finally got a hold of a Realm of Battle game board. Sadly I had finished painting it by the time I signed up. I'll post pics soon so people can see what the terrain I'm building us actually going to sit on.

"The world of Darunius Coronis. Once a relatively sparsely populated world in the segmentum obscurous. To the south east of the eye. It is a wasteland with sparse vegetation and sone trees.

It has long since been lost to the imperium. Instead now it is used as a secret hidden base for the Absalom Drume, Warsmith of a rogue grand company of Iron Warriors that forms the core of a much larger warband of other degenerate followers of Chaos.

The world is not a daemon world proper but the effects of chaos can be felt everywhere. Most locations suffer some degree of warp distress but most notable near the Chaos lords citadels."

So with that in mind I painted the table to reflect this. I'll be making lots of chaotic scenery.

My first items are three lava pools and a crashed satellite I bought from Mr Dandy. They're very nice. Some discussion was had between my wife, myself and my seven year old son. I toyed with actually painting it as lava or pools of green puss/slime. Then a brainwave hit me. My son loved it. So it's going to be pools of some sort of purple daemonic blood with eyes floating to the surface.



Wish me luck. It's a big project.

[Little Joe]

Looking good, I think the pink is suitably chaosy and the eyes will make it pop, a nice set of scenery.

[Erazmus_M_Wattle]

White eyes with various lurid colours of iris or orange flaming Sauron eyes? What do you think?

[Dangersaurus]

Those craters look very cool Erazmus.


Well... my FLGS owner gave me a giant box filled with CoD ruins & sprues, a forest, a skyshield, a temple of skulls and other bits last weekend when I picked up my starter set, so of course I don't have anything to show yet.

Well, nothing worth taking pictures of, at least. I put together the skyshield, then tidied up the ruins that had already been built. There were enough sprues and bits to make two more ruins, with another dozen or so panels left that I haven't decided what to do with. I need more floor pieces. I also measured out foamcore bases for everything, and picked up some sand and spackle. Once I get things a little further I'll take some pics.

[Little Joe]

@Erazmus_M_Wattle: I would do white eyes because it keeps the pink brighter, You should also consider doing some eyes that do not show their pupils fully. With these "emerging" eyes you can do some fancy capillary effects in red as well. Besides white eyes allow for blue, grey, green or basically any colour of the iris, making it far more chaosy.
This is presuming it is 40k terrain based on your avatar and the satellite.

@Dangersaurus: Well then show us the pile of sprues. A very friendly local game store you go to.

Building my (first) skirmish tables, the beginning.

This morning some shopping was done. I got some 5mm MDF board. Yes the thin stuff because it does not need to carry any weight and I want to keep the mass as low as I can.
I decided to make this as simple as I possibly can, and to derive some kind of tutorial from it, where I discuss some techniques. Ease of production will be achieved by:
1. Good planning in advance, but not too much.
2. The best way to work is not to take measure, use tricks.
3. Mostly use methods a child could do, no hard work and limited use of dangerous tools.
4. Letting steps fully cure, give it some time, no haste needed.

Materials used today:
• 2 boards 92x92cm
• 4 boards 89,5x20cm
• plastic L profiles 15mm, 2m length
• 2 Styrofoam boards
• 1 6x125x60cm PUR hard foam board
• Glue for foam and a cheap hobby glue
Remember to check sizes when buying pre cut wood, it saves trouble later on. Complain on site if needed, it is your right.

And because cost does matter, this lot cost me 44,18€ with an extra panel from the left over box. I should go and check that box more often because I do not need large pieces for terrain and they basically give it away.
The foam will probably not be enough for both boards, but I do not want to plan ahead too much and so the second one will just receive a basic skeleton.
This also means I did not get the side panels yet, because I do not want to limit myself in height yet either.
I expect the total cost to be about 100€ per board with all the detail I can add to it, but to be honest, there is no spending margin.



First off the profiles were cut into 8 20cm, 2 10cm, 4 4cm and 2 2cm pieces and the four smaller boards were cut in two at an angle with a saw. This way I had to get just four boards and start without excess material.



Thin wood also means bendy wood, which is why for now only the angles at the corners matter. To glue them straight easily, I used the profiles. A small profile was glued on the inside according to height of the corner and a larger one on the outside was just to push. This way I could push at the profiles from two sides ensuring a good angle. Because the boards were cut at 5mm gluing one on the side gives a total of 90cm.
I could have done all the white sides on the outside, but it really does not matter. The MDF is just to get easy and strong straight edges that will also fit nicely into the box.
It is only on the bottom board already to make sure it will fit later on. When gluing on the floor or any other level surface small differences can occur. Remember no measuring just tricks.



After letting the glue dry for a good while I cut the cheap Styrofoam to 89cm and made some space in the corners for the profiles. Because cutting straight can be difficult I used some clamps and a thick board to make sawing easy.
I used a saw because I do not have any vapours this way, cleaning is not so much fun though.
Gluing this inside the side boards will give me a good start on getting those sides straight. It also ensures a basic strength before gluing it to the board. With the left overs sawed to make three out of four angles straight, these boards are off to a good start.

To cut straight I used some other pieces of wood. Measuring can be tricky especially if you use a measure tape. That is why I first measured from the side I was going to use, then I switched sides and aligned the wood to the lines to saw it to fit. After the first piece is done and has been tested to fit, you should use that piece to measure from then on.







This way you do not have to care about the thickness of the cut, keeps sawing nice and easy but takes more measuring time.

Doing so, I cut the other Styrofoam piece up to size, and used it to cut the hard foam into two. That was cut up again to make the bottom layer. The other piece was used sideways to give more strength.
Then I started gluing all the pieces to the sides, though not to the bottom board yet. I put it on one corner to properly align the sides and because the bottom layer and the sidepiece have a length of 89cm this should make a nice square. I used a lot of boxes with my books to put some pressure on the sides while drying. This is what it looks like right now:



This is the bottom layer glued into position, looks good, fits well and makes the sides as straight as can be:



Things that did not go well:
• I spend all the Styrofoam glue. I use this special glue, because it sticks Styrofoam and PUR very well to wood. Provided you apply it very thin. To do this I use a spatula and wiggle the pieces into position.



• Not enough PUR for the second piece, although planned it would have been better to get it over with in one go. I will draw up some plans for the second board and buy more glue and a piece of PUR soonish.
• Because I did not get the sides storage while making this will cause trouble, this needs a solution.
• Getting 5cm and 6cm thickness caused some unnecessary trouble, I learnt my lesson there.

The bottom board does not need to be thick either, because strength is achieved with Styrofoam and PUR hard foam. It is just a cover with a 1cm overlap to make it a nice lid for the box and to have a straight surface under the tabletop board later on.
More importantly the bugger who has to drag this around is me and this saves me effort in the long run. It is more than strong enough and quite light, I hope to keep the total mass per board under 5kg. Putting the box on wheels will help but sometimes I will have to lift it and am thinking of that already now.


And so the first board is ready to do some sculpting in PUR hard foam after it is glued to it's bottom board. The second one has the basics done and is put aside for now. Ideas for it vary from a pirate island to some nice meadows of a Halfling village. But if this works out fine, all of that will be made in time, depending on storage space (which these are designed not to take much of).

[Dangersaurus]

@Dangersaurus: Well then show us the pile of sprues. A very friendly local game store you go to.

Not too many sprues left now. Everythings clipped off and either built or bagged away for later. I've based up the CoD streetlights and used the leaves from the Citadel Wood set to make some mysterious forests. Here's what I have so far. Sorry about the smudge on the lens, didn't notice it 'til after.



Not shown are the skull altar (it's on the table for tomorrows game) or the citadel wood.

I was pleased to see the Skyshield matches up in area if not height to my scratch-built orky one:



As you can see, terrain can't sit for very long around here without spawning ponies.

[Little Joe]

Well that looks off to a good start, I like the idea with skewers and the plastic leaves. If I do not use mine on some trees, that is what I shall do with them.

The lamps will be used as sources of light in night scenarios?

[Solun Decius]

This is off to a really nice start for everybody!

I love the pools Erazmus_M_Wattle and I must commend Little Joe on the very professional work space and tools!
@Dangersaurus: That's an impressive terrain build, and the orky landing pad is really good.

I haven't taken a garage session yet this month, but I was pulled back into a real life terrain project, now that my city has allowed it, and actually scheduled it's opening for next week.

More explanations and WIP later but here the final(ish) schematic that I drew last night:

[Little Joe]

A few trenches in your garden? or flower beds in multiple levels since it is in centimetres, going by the left numbers that is a whole lot of garden work ahead. Success!

EDIT: I now know it is a pump track, that looks like a good afternoon of fun with a small digging machine. And with a bike after that of course.

This weekend will unfortunately see nothing done for me, but I ham happy to tell that the first casing worked out just perfect so far. I measured it up and the corner angles are at a nice 90 degrees, the sides are the right length and the top is fully covered in pink foam. But most importantly the Styrofoam glue is keeping it all together very well and it is a solid light weight block so far.

I did take off the last week of this month so next Saturday I will go shopping and get most of the missing parts to get at least the basics fully done this month. Since that should take less then one day chances are good I will get some cutting done as well to get the final shape visible on the first board.

[Solun Decius]

I now know it is a pump track, that looks like a good afternoon of fun with a small digging machine...

Yes, afternoon with a small digger... OR...

6 hours Saturday with these "small" diggers:



Doing amaizingly accurate sculpting like this:



followed by being there sunrise to sunset on suday and end-of-work till sunset monday and tuesday.
Shovel sculpting by hand,



pressing,



and hardening the ground a bit with gravel and cement



and obviously riding our bikes a lot the whole time too



so now it really doesn't look much unlike the wartorn universe of the 41st millenium




Sorry about the semi off topic stuff. I feel in the right since the track is my design and I was there for the building the whole time.
It was terrain building though, and I promise to get some 40K terrain built before the end of the month. Looks good for this weekend

[Little Joe]

Wowsers, that is some serious terrain building. A bit rough on the edges and the dirt could use another dry brush but still amazing .
Thanks for sharing.

Well I hopefully have a week off now, so I am preparing to get some shopping done today. I made a small list and will be off to the DIY. I need some wood for the side panels and a bit of pink foam along with 1cm of Styrofoam to correct last times shopping error and lots of Styrofoam glue. Progress pictures probably not before tomorrow because it will be a glue orgy today I already and I already showed that. Tomorrow when all is dry I would like to take a sanding machine or two to the first board and have some fun modelling it into shape.

[Little Joe]

OK, so I took a break for now to let the glue set. Time to write down some thoughts and because I have something new to show, pictures as well.

Shopping part two, like I said I got myself a 4 side panels (91x45cm), a new PUR board and a 1cm sheet of Styrofoam. Along with a 1kg bucket of Styrofoam glue of which I believe not much will be left at the end.



Let me start with my first mistake of today (many more were made), I wanted to get 10mm MDF board for the sides, but there was also some 8mm board which was already strong enough for what I wanted. Wanting to save on weight I got those and forgot to add the 2mm. Of course pre cut only comes in 5mm steps and if I had thought about it in hindsight I would still get it.
The reason for this is that cropping the panel with by sanding will probably not get straight edges (although it would have been just one mm). After checking the left over bits in the garage I found some pieces of wood to make it fit perfectly. And another plastic L-strip was found as well.
Second lesson of the day: check first before shopping, I would not have needed to get the strips from my first shopping trip. This is now put to a good use as it should.



I did notice a 2mm shift on one corner, which was annoying but ok as after a check on the basic board to which I had aligned the edges were even enough. 1mm off on a meter is acceptable I think.
I began with the box because this way I can ensure that the other table lid will fit just as snugly
Alignment was used again to fit the boards, the other reason I had chosen 8mm for the side panels was that this way I could use the plastic strips on the tables as well and have nice corners while also having smooth edges to slide them into the box. Speaking of boxes, I used the moving boxes a lot this morning as well. When drilling, it is nice to have something keeping the boards in place.



I pre drilled the edges with a 1mm drill and then used this to guide me when drilling the corresponding holes in the side of the other panel for that corner. I used the small drill, although I like more power (HUR HUR), it is better to have one as light as possible to have the utmost control. The sides were drilled a second time with a 2mm drill and then with glue and nails the corners were fixated.



Here I made another mistake by wanting to start with a good corner; I should have glued the filler wood to the edges first. It did not cause real trouble in the end, but it could have. It no longer matters, because I used the plastic strips to hide my shame as well as to give additional strength.



And a dry fit for the other side to prove all is well so far.



When all is dry, I will wait until this evening to be sure, I will crop the brown plastic strips and use the side panels to glue the other board together.

I think I will use the last picture for next month to show I made a box .

[Solun Decius]

Thanks dude!
Your board/case seems to be pretty sturdy already. I guess that needs to come together pretty accurately.

My project for today was nowhere near as exact.
My daughter and I spent some time in the garage today cutting and gluing polystyrene foam, then pouring plaster and gluing sand.




This piece is 24"x48" so it can be used as 1/3 of a standard 40K table.

I'm kind of scared that I mixed or worked some of the plaster wrong so that it'll never properly dry.
We wanted to paint it tomorrow but we're going to have to get a better feel for the plaster first.

Now I've finally posted a proper WIP for actual 28mm terrain. Hopefully I've redeemed myself after my off-topic (and off-showing) post yesterday.

[Little Joe]

That looks really good.

It only needs to be as exact as I can get it for now. But I want a good fit in the box because it will get some wheels so I can roll it along rather then having to carry it. Later on I will cheat to get it all properly done, for now I cannot know what paint or I will do to sizes.
The basics for the second table are done, it just needs to be glued to it's board. That will take all the rest of the glue I had gotten, so in the box is at least 1kg of Styrofoam glue somewhere. Not good for mass reduction.



I cut up some movement bases packaging to get plastic strips to add to the sides to get a distance and getting the edges right. This board starts basically the same, but will look very different due to another setting.



It went together a lot better because I have learned from the first try. For today I hope to get the second board glued to it's board and sanding the first one into a basic shape as was the original goal for this month.

[Solun Decius]

Thanks man!

The plaster was actually incorrectly mixed and would never have properly dried, or at least never been sturdy enough.
I stripped all the plaster off and found a bunch of PVA glue that hadn't dried either and just a big old mess, so I basically removed the whole tower and wall and everything and cleaned the pieces.
I actually took the whole board into my yard and hosed it down with considerable pressure to clean out everything that wasn't stuck properly.

After removing and cleaning everything the piece looked like this:



The patch of plaster is my first test when mixing it correctly. It's drying much better now.




I then built the whole thing again and made the lava flows and stuff with new improved plaster.
It looks much the same, but I seem to have applied everything thicker and bigger this time around.
My main concern is that 25mm bases can properly balance anywhere on the table, so I try not to have slopes. I hope the lava surface isn't too rough or wavy.






While I was on a roll with the plaster I did the lava and stuff for another little piece I started a while ago.
This piece is only 12"x24" so it just serves as a little filler, but it's got a nice platform with good visibility for heavy weapons or something.




I'm hoping to finish sanding and plastering (if more is needed) this during the week and then take a good terrain painting session next weekend.

[Dangersaurus]

Not a very productive weekend for me modeling/painting-wise. Had an early game (tied), followed by an 8-hour AD&D game. Managed to get sand and primer on the tree stands without nodding off, but that's about it. Job stuff tomorrow, so maybe I'll post pics after but right now I'm super bushed.

Edit: combining posts

Okay, here's what I was up to over the weekend and a little this evening: "mysterious forests" WIP:



More pink to come. For the forests, I was thinking pinkish trunks with glossy black/green leaves. I want to add a little more character to them too, so this evening I'm thinking of retreating to the garage for a nice relaxing dig through some bitz boxes. The big base will need to be painted separately from the big seaweed stalk. For those that play 40k, the dried seaweed thingie will be dangerous terrain + mysterious forest.

[Little Joe]

@Solun Decius: That looks interesting, my next step is plaster as well, but just very small amounts. In my experience it is just heavy and cracks without some white glue in the mix. So let us (me) know how it worked and what mix is best.

@That seaweed stalk looks amazing, did you add the "tongue" to the top or is it all natural?

Only a short update from me as I had a two hour session with some tools to get the basic shape done for the first board. I sunk the two citadel wood bases into the board and will fill up the holes with a marshy look.



All I can say is that small changes to the plan are normal for me and that I am truly glad I did this outside. I hope for some good weather to maybe get the other one shaped up as well.