Hardcore Foamcore: Ruins III

 

 

A quick post to conclude the modeling portion of this short series on reasonably realistic, modular foamcore terrain. Here are some pictures of the WIP pieces with all the little modeling embelishments added, but no paint. 

You can see in this inside shot of the first segment that I liberally scattered some rubble elements like stones (gravel), fallen shingles (broken coffee stirrers), and splintered timbers (thin cardboard from a six-pack I drank) to make the building look more realistically ruined, but I also tried to leave a reasonable amount of room to place figures during game play.

The outside of this section showcases the vine coverage which I think really adds some interest. The leaves of the vines here are actually made from crushed eggshells (the brown bits are some dried tealeaves that were originally stored in the vessel I used). I found out about this nifty trick at terrainthralls, here. (If you haven't seen this site yet, I recommend it. Great tutorials.) I added an extra wrinkle by using some PVA and twine to create the vine stem, in a similar manner to my tree roots.

I constructed the roof timbers with coffee stirrers. It's really easy to cut them to whatever shape you want: just score them along both sides with an exacto, and snap. For messy breaks, I found it best to twist them instead of snapping.

I inserted the rafters by making a shallow cut at the top of the wall and setting each beam in with a bead of glue.

I then laid on tile 'strips' to quickly achieve the look of a once-fully-tiled roof. I then cut a few loose tiles and artfully scattered them over the edges where the strip method might be betrayed if left uncovered.

Don't know what happened with the lighting on this picture, but it's the only one I have of the interior of this building. I really enjoyed wrapping the creepers around the wall and through the window for just a little more character.

And that's that. Stay tuned for some pics of the finished, painted models. In the mean time, comment. Tell me what you think. Or lie and tell me what someone else thinks. Don't care.

Hardcore Foamcore: Pillars

 

A quick post on an easy way to make a few characterful terrain "smalls." using left over foamcore. After cutting all the template pieces for my ruins, I found that I only had a little bit of material left over. Not enough for any real project... but just enough to cut into some rectangles and octagons to make some pillars for cover in skirmish games.

 

Also, since only one side of the foamcore would be visible, I could use a classic terrain building technique to reinforce the joins:



 

Simply lift one edge of the foam covering like so...



 

...And use it as a gluing surface for the interior of the joins. Quite strong when dry.

While the pillar quadrangles were drying, I glued the octagonal bases to some large fender washers for weight.


Finally, I peeled away all of the outside paper and used the same scribing technique as I used in my ruins, roughed them up with a rock for texture, and there you go:

These will be seeing paint soon, along with the ruins. (You can see a sneak peak at the right edge of the above photo.)

DO YOU FEEL STRONGLY ABOUT PILLARS? (Or terrain, or foamcore, or anything? ANYTHING?) If so please comment below.