DIY Terrain Build - Tutor Farm House

As a change of pace from building and painting miniatures for all my games, I decided it was time to get some terrain made again.

It's been a long time since I built some terrain, and it was really fun to sit down and just build something from scratch with no plans.

I have hills, rivers, fences, etc. for my table, but I do not have any buildings that I could use for games such as Middle-Earth Strategy Battle Game, Warhammer 40K, or even for Bolt Action.  Since lately, I have been in the mood to paint my Middle-Earth models, I decided to start off creating a building for that style of game.

So for my first building, I decided to create a little Tutor Farm House.  Below are the images for the steps I took, I did not take a lot of photos of every step but caught the major ones, lol.  :)

Materials All laid out ready to start work, and yes I'm messy.

Walls cut out, glued up and roof added on.  Used cardboard from

a small box for the roof and I backed each wall with a piece of

cardboard the same size as the dollar tree foam board is pretty

flimsy when you peel the paper off.

I cut out individual small bricks for the foundation, and

created a door with a brick frame.

Foundation complete, and ready to start adding the wood

exterior and then the roof.

Wood accents around the building are complete, and now to

start the roof.  I cut our individual shingles for the roof using

the cardboard from a cereal box.

The roof is now complete and I really like how the wood accents

turned out.  I cut out each wood plank from the foam, and

peeled the backing off one side of the foam, and used a sharp

object to create the wood grain.

Here is another look at the completed building, this time from

the backside of the building.

The next steps are to get this all painted up. I still have not decided if I want to put it on a base or not, with flocking, etc.  I really like ho this turned out, and I feel not too bad for my first attempt at a building like this.  One thing I know I did a little wrong, is the door is a little bit too big for this house and will make that correction on the next one.

Until next time, happy gaming!!!!!

DIY Terrain: Making a Bridge to go over my River sectons

Awhile back I made River sections for my War-gaming table(s), so I decided I needed a bridge.  So off to my local Dollar Tree I went in search of some cheap foam board and other terrain materials.  I love the dollar tree foam, it very easy to work with, of course its cheap.

So, I wanted my bridge to be made out of Stone and Wood.  So I decided that each of the sides would be a stone step structure, with a wooden platform to go across the water.

I started out with just cardboard I cut out of a cardboard box, then cut out sections and hot-glued them together to make a stair effect.

 

For each stair I used strips of the foam board cut out into small sections, I then used a pen to gouge into the surface of the foam board sections to make the individual bricks.  To get this desired effect, you first have to remove one of the paper backing on the foam board.  The Dollar Tree foam board works great for this, because its cheap, the backing paper comes right off with ease, without having to wet the board, etc.  I got this tip from DM Scotty and his YouTube channel theDMsCraft.

 

The Wooden bridge section, I used "skinny Sticks" which I picked up from Wal-Mart, I think they sell for right around a $1 or so, maybe less for a pack of 75 sticks.  In the package they are 5.75" x 0.25", and work great for making a variety of crafting projects.

I really wish I took staging pictures of each step better, the ones about I made up after the project was compete, lol.

So here is the finished project:

Designed the bridge to insert into the foam for easier storage.

Assembled and placed over one of the River sections

I really like how this ended up, and look forward to using it on the table.  I placed a couple of Cryx models from Warmachine to show a scale for the models.  I think this can be used in a variety of different games.

Let me know what you think, and if you have any other ideas for terrain making.  Until next time, keep gaming, and keep crafting.  Both are a blast.

Terrain Build - Wooden Fences

Got a little bored today, and just was not in the mood to paint of build models.  So I decided to make terrain instead.

So, these are two of the fence sections that are complete, I have four more, one will include a gate.

I also started working on some buildings, and will eventually post about those as well.

Until next time, keep on gaming and having fun.

Semi-Completed River sections for War Gaming Table

As promised, here is the the river sections so far.

They look a lot better in person.  I still have to put the varnish coat on for the water effect.

Building new terrain for my Wargaming Board - Rivers Terrain

Since I want to start gaming at home as well as my local hobby shops, I have decided to build my own gaming table from scratch.  This also will give me some projects to do, because I don't have that much terrain at home, so I will be making a lot of terrain of the next couple of weeks,

Medium Density Fiber Board (MDF)

I have to wait till next week to purchase the materials to make the table, so this weekend I decided to start on some of my terrain pieces.  I have always liked having some type of water features on my tables, so I decide my first terrain feature for the table would be a river that could run the width of the board.


Off I went down to my local Home Depot, and I picked up a 1/4 in. x 2 ft. x 2 ft. Medium Density Fiber Board (MDF).  I really like working with this stuff as its easy to cut and shape, and sands very well.  Basing the MDF is easy, and really stands up for using it as terrain.  Its also heavy enough that it will not easily move if the table is bumped.



So I started of today drawing out my shapes of each section.  I decided that I would have 4 straight section, each being 1 ft. in length, and two corner sections.  This will give a lot of variety of choices when placing the river sections down on the table.  Once I got the layout drawn out, I realized I had enough material left over to also cut out 3 round bases that I will use for other projects.  Maybe I will use them for maybe a swamp piece, or forest pieces of terrain.  Below is the pieces after I got them all cut out.  I borrowed a jig saw from my brother, and it made short work at cutting all the pieces out.

All pieces cut out, and bonus terrain pieces from left over material.

My next steps for the pieces was to bevel all the edges for the pieces would not have the flat edge to them.  Only where the pieces butt together was left straight.  I just used a utility knife and a sanding block to make nice clean beveled edges.  This will help the pieces blend more into the table when placed on the board for play.  Below are several images of my progress on this step.

Pieces with the edges beveled and sanded

For each joint I tried to match the bevel as best I could, I'm no professional, lol.

My next steps will be to base and paint the pieces to make them look like river sections.  I will be doing a followup post when I'm done with those steps, but will take pictures as I go like I did for this post.

Until next time, keep on gaming, and may your dice always be blessed.