I've finally finished something of note. Some hills to grace my table, to add to my woods. They are part of an overall plan to build a set of "generic" terrain - woods, hills, rivers and roads. I'm not wanting to worry about anything more sophisticated (snow, autumn, coastlines etc), that can wait.I'll eventually add more. Currently there's a big hill, which is actually made of two parts. This lets you use the hill as two separate hills on the edges of the table, or combine them for a centrepiece for the table. Then there's two small hills with one rough side each. These can be used as is, or put, say, on either side of a river or road to provide a small gully. Then there's the other hill, which is fairly typical except for an impassable cliff section.
Rivers, hedges and some buildings are next.The hills are built as follows:
- cut out a hill shape from polystyrene (should have used the pink stuff, but only had the regular white variety). Just the outline at this stage, no shaping yet.
- cut a rough shape out of MDF for the base (using a jigsaw) that fits the polystyrene. The edge of the base is rounded off with a file. I can't stress how much easier a power tool makes this! I can't remember if I was using 3mm or 6mm MDF, I'll check when I get home.
- glue the polystyrene onto the base, generally needing something heavy to hold it down so that it doesn't lift off or warp.- shape the polystyrene using a sharp knife. A blunt knife will just make life hard. Be careful not to cut yourself! Any rocky cliffs and crags are cut at this stage by taking a series of "wedge" shapes out of the polystyrene, horizontally and vertically in a fairly rough manner. One option I'm looking into is to use some form of plaster to better model the rock faces.
- use watered down white glue and sand to put a rough texture over the hills. Any extra coarse gravel or stones can be added at this time too for rough areas.
- once dry, apply a dark brown or black base coat. I've just used standard tubes of acrylic paint from the stationary store. Any exposed foam is painted first by hand, and then a spray is used to cover the bulk of the hill.- dry brush 2-3 layers, starting with a dark brown and working up to a bone colour. Rocky areas receive a bit more attention here, mixing in some greys as well "to taste".
- flock all over, with your main flock colour. I've used Woodland Scenics fine turf.
- to blend in a bit more variety, different coloured flock can be added. This was done by spraying on glue through a piece of cardboard with rough shaped holes cut into it. Flock was then sprinkled over, to provide a light covering that lets the base colour show through too. The "clumpier" bits on the last hill were added by applying white glue by hand with a brush, and then sprinkling on a coarser flock. One of the smaller hills also has some static grass added, I'm currently unsure whether I'll do this on the other hills or not.
