Scenery and Detail
Sull
Okay: I would like to get some information about how people go about
designing and constructing landscapes for their miniatures, especially 25mm
ones. I've got all the miniatures I need, but I would like a terrain for
them. I'm looking for help and/or ideas.
I visited the local model railroad club recently, and saw an incredible
display of a forested plateau, with a small track that ran along about 1/2 way down the cliff face, and finally entered a tunnel. Now, I don't know how this pictures came across in desciption, but it was *incredible*. Looking around, I saw that the basis was thin chicken wire set in the basic shape, with plaster of paris or paper mache placed over it. The trees were individually made and stuck into holes in the base. It looked great.
Is this how everybody does it? I'm an admitted beginner at this, so I'm pretty clueless overall. Is there a FAQ for scenery (I know there's one for painting)? Any magazines/books/publishings I should know about? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Responses by e-mail are welcome as well. Thanks.
sull
sul...@rpi.edu
dgbr...@ulkyvx.louisville.edu
> Okay: I would like to get some information about how people go about
> designing and constructing landscapes for their miniatures, especially 25mm
> ones. I've got all the miniatures I need, but I would like a terrain for
> them. I'm looking for help and/or ideas.
Once you have a large table about 3' X 6' or 4' X 8' (I advise the
latter) start off with a roll of Grass Paper (50" X 99") which runs about $6.50
from Toys R Us or a specialized railroad hobby shop, OR a long sheet of green
felt, which can be obtained at a materials shop for a little more money.
If you wish to BUY trees, then I suggest buying the kits like I mentioned in
another message. They are from Woodland Scenics and you could get the stems,
bases and conifer green clump foliage for 24 Pines all for $9.59. That's good
in comparison to rigid, spiny pre-made trees that cost $4.99 for 3-4 trees.
Try to get trees that average about 4" high (the package I mentioned has
conifers ranging from 4"-6") but the bigger the better (and more expensive).
If you don't really care if they look like real trees or not, try making your
own from Pipe Cleaners or branching Plastic Sprues and Lichen (can be bought
cheap from most hobby stores) or other spongy material. Use the rest of the
Lichen as scrub (soft cover) or designate it as the borders of your "forests"
if you don't have quite enough trees. Lichen ranges in color from green to
yellow and red and makes a striking contrast to the color of the Grass Paper.
Hills are a little more complex and can't normally be bought (so much
the better, IMHO). Start with a large curvy elliptical/oval shaped piece of
pliable board of some type at least 1/2" thick and cut it to successively
smaller portions, each fitting within the other. This produces a graded
effect with each section a little higher and more inward than the others. You
can spray paint the hills and sprinkle them with sand or rocky ballast to give
a textured appearance. Use other portions of the material or rocks, as found
in nature, as sporadic boulders and such.
As I mentioned a few days ago, Styrofoam computer packing materials
make excellent futuristic buildings if you pick them out well. I've
accumulated my own horde of them, but haven't actually made them into buildings
yet. I'm wary of painting them with spray paint. Any somewhat hard durable
containers in interesting shapes could be used to make buildings or towers.
If you have models of other structures (I have the Sears Tower in SILVER, the
Sunsphere of the 1982 World's Fair, and the Eiffel Tower) use those as well!
Almost anything can be made to look good as futuristic terrain if you use your
imagination.
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Dave Brumleve BITNET: DGBR...@ULKYVX.BITNET
INTERNET: DGBR...@ULKYVX.LOUISVILLE.EDU
"I'm the Baby, Gotta Love Me! Ha ha!"
- Baby Sinclair (DinOsaurs)
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Barry L. Geipel
There are as many ways of producing terraign as there are rules to play.
The system we use (20mm WWII) uses a comercially available proguct
called Geo-hex. These are 12" green hexagons that are either plain or
with roads leading from edge to edge. Hills are formed with their
sloped peices which match up with the hex sides. The overall look
is quite satisfying when trees, hedgeds and buildings are placed
on top. Also, Geo-hex allows for pre-planned and reproducable
table tops which is great for convention and campaign play.
The draw back is the price. Each set ran about $250.00 about 6
years ago, and I am sure that they have not gotten any cheaper.
If you play with a group of people, you could consider pooling
you money.
If you have access to a GIF reader, you can see some examples
of my Geo-hex terrain by downloading my GIF images via ftp anonymous
from:
ftp.cwi.com:/cdmailer/Command_Decsision_gifs
or you can view some of them directly via mosaic by opening URL
http://ftp.cwi.com/cdmailer/.www/cdmailer.html
--
Barry L. Geipel ||
Email:ba...@cwi.com || Lacking a muse, my mauser
Compu$erve:710055,3726 || must be my thunderbolt
NRA CRPA HMGS-PSW ||