Big Box Terrain, Part Four

Posted On January 13, 2015

Miniature wargaming is a three dimensional hobby, so it is only right and fitting that it be fought on three dimensional fields. Over the course of the last couple of nights, I put together a couple of hills, and here’s how I did it. These are all pretty basic techniques, so if you’ve been wargaming for years it’s probably safe to skip the words and just enjoy the pretty pictures.

First up, the general contours. We start with standard bases. On the right is a blank CD. On the left is a 3/8-inch thick precut wood shape bought for about fifty cents at the craft store. Instead of another round or square base, this one uses a football shape, for a bit of variety.

The contours shown here are made of built up posterboard cut to size and glued down with white craft glue. Before the glue was even dry, I spackled up some smooth hillsides, and stuck a couple pebbles in each to break up the monotony. The posterboard is lighter than spackle and gives you a lot more control over the precise slopes for the hills.

After letting the spackle dry overnight, the pebbles had to be glued into place.

For the record, this is the spackled used in this application. Probably don’t need the pre-primed spackle, but it’s what I had handy.

6mm figure atop the hill for scale

The next day, I glued down a fine cover of beach sand. A second day of drying and it was on to paint. I painted these the same way as the woods – black primer, white drybrush, drybrush with various shades of brown. Then each base was finished off with a coat of thinned down white glue, covered with static grass and left to dry.

The whole thing was quick and easy enough that I could even toss a water hazard onto the golfing green. This piece was partially a test piece for the water color for the upcoming river project. Bright blue might not be very realistic, but it just looks so darn sharp on the table.

With just a few basic techniques, I now have enough terrain to fill up a table. More than enough to play a game, but the figures haven’t arrived in the mail yet, so I’ve still got time to whip up some rivers and roads…

Aerial view of the selection to date