Jim's Terrain Project Log

[JMGraham]

Post-Kickstarter for the wrecked vehicles, I've been working on some stuff. I'm trying to come up with a basic set of terrain for Warmachine/Malifaux/Warhammer Fantasy and whatever other mildly steampunk not-quite historical board game you could imagine. Nothing fancy, just some basics - buildings, walls, scatter terrain, etc. Partly I'm doing it so I can try out some new casting techniques, up to and including slushcasting with resin and filling in with hard foam. 

 

To start with, I played around with some basic foam carving techniques. Just some pink foam, scored with an xacto, and then textured by pushing in some bricks, texturing with rocks, etc, to try and get a more detailed rock texture. Here's it on a larger scale:

 

 

I wanted to see how it would cast up, so I tried carving up some walls. These are 1/2 thick and 1" high - the long sections are 6". Here's a new example I'm working on now, with cereal-box cardboard used for metal strips and rivets:

 

 

I made a mold using Smooth-On's new Mold Max NV (no vacuum). I like it a lot and I think it might be my new go-to low cost mold material. Here's the mold of the walls, along with a couple of molds for some crates that I'll talk about later:

 

 

The molds were initially a wreck - being used to platinum silicon, I didn't use any mold release, and had to spend the better part of a morning picking out foam bits with tweezers. I also inadvertently carved the crap out of places in the mold I shouldn't have. Oops! Regardless, I cast some in resin and they were OK - not the best detail in places, and you could certainly see the pieces of mold I had carved up. Here are some wall sections, along with some doors and windows I built out of plasticard and putty and cast up for making buildings. I marked one of the mold cuts so you could see what I mean:

 

 

That didn't stop me from slapping a quick drybrush on one of the resin sets:

 

 

EDIT: Too many photos! had to split it over two posts

[JMGraham]

Still, it was a good start, so I cast it up a couple more times in plaster and, once the placter was starting to dry, took to it with some sculptng tools/ I carved them up, deepened the crevices, added texture, etc. It also allowed me to do a couple versions of them - one set "mostly intact" and one set "mostly ruined". Once I was happy with them I sprayed them with some gloss clearcoat to help seal them. I'll be using these to cast a new mold, and this time I'll remember the mold release! The final master models are here (mostly intact is in the back, mostly ruined is in the front:

 

 

I've also made some basic crates and barrels using wooden blocks as a base, and covering them with plasticard. I use a scraper thing (not sure what it's called - it's like a dental pick with a sharp hook that you use to score off a sliver of plasticard) and an xacto to get the wood grain. I had previously made molds of these and cast a bunch in resin. Recently, I put them together into different arrangements and greenstuffed the seams. I'll make molds of these and use them for warehouse-style scatter terrain. Think Mass Effect - it's not a skirmish battle unless you're ducking from crate to crate. Here are some of the arrangements I came up with:

 

 

I had also come up with some sci-fi versions, but they might be too simplistic. I'm not 100% certain, but I might re-do these with some more sophisticated crate designs.

 

 

Finally, I eventually want to cast larger terrain pieces, like buildings and hills. Here are some in-progress trial pieces. We'll see if I come up with anything worth casting. As of now they're mostly just foam cut to shape, with some of the texturing started. I'm thinking of using a combo of stone and a half-timber style, using riveted steel in place of timber. To speed the process, I'll make molds of some of the architectural details, like the doors and windows. Still not sure if I'll do shingled roofs, or steel roofs. Probably the former, as more texture is good, and it would be more useful for a wider variety of systems. Casting these will require a rigid mother mold and expanding foam, which I am a bit nervous about. We'll see, though!

 

 

Next up are more work on the walls and buldings. I'll want to make a larger warehouse style building, and some accessories (like chimneys, external tanks, and the like) that can be added onto the buildings for variety. To be continued!

 

UPDATE: I made the molds for the steampunk walls (using a urethane varnish to seal them, and then a mold release solved my need to re-cast), for the mostly ruined walls, and for the crates. They turned out great! My vibrating table ended up being a bit too powerful, and I mucked loose the mostly-intact walls. I'll need to wait to get some more mold material before I make that mold. Casts of the other stuff turned out great, though.

[JMGraham]

Sorry for the image spam, but I just took a few more shots of the latest stuff.

 

Here are the molds for a couple of the wall sets and the crate scatter terrain. I probably could have planned that last one better to use less mold material,

 

 

Here are some quick photos of the casts from them:

 

Steel-reinforced walls:

 

 

Mostly ruined stone walls:

 

 

Crate scatter terrain:

 

 

I've also got my eye on doing some ruins in various styles. I'll do some the same stone style as the walls (the rough-cut random stone pattern), but I'd also like to do some other styles, like a more classical ruin. Toward that end, I picked up some cheap cake toppers, sawed one into pieces, and made molds of them. I them cast them in plaster. This will let me carve them to (hopefully) look appropriately ruined - I'll then use these to make various ruins that I'll cast as whole pieces (a barricade formed by a fallen column, and area of rough terrain with some partially intact columns, etc. I love found objects!

 

 

Finally, I also finally broke down and got some tools from Hot Wire Foam Factory. Marvelous stuff! We've been using a lot more line-of-sight blocking terrain at our local club, so I wanted to try some big stuff. Here's the start of a butte carved out of foam. For scale, the wall piece in the front is 1 inch high,

 

 

If you can't tell, I've been on winter break, hence the increased hobby time!

[stark1261]

I love it all!

[tombking]

Looking very good.

[nathonicus]

Needs more boxes.

 

Lookin' good.

[JMGraham]

SO MANY BOXES!!! It's a sickness I have. Too much Mass Effect.

 

Thanks for the kind words! I'm really glad the steel-reinforced walls came out well without needing to be cast in plaster, re-sculpted, and remolded. I've really been enjoying the foam carving, but there was no way I could justify much of it if it required 2 molds per sculpt.

[Jay]

I will interested to see where the pricing ends up with all this. I have found that in crate stacks you either get decent ones for really high prices or crappy ones with still somewhat high prices.

[JMGraham]

I need to actually measure the amount of resin that goes into them. I'm guessing I'll buck the trend and give folks crappy ones for really high prices!

[nathonicus]

Hey, I have an idea for a sci-fi themed thing you could make that to the best of my knowledge isn't out there yet in mass-produced form. Remind me the next time we see each other.

[fluger]

LOOKS GREAT!!!

[dalmer]

Hello there,

 

Very well done, sir and I look forward to seeing more ideas of yours come to fruition!

 

Inspiring stuff, indeed...

 

Stay safe,

 

don

[esperatus]

Really like the iron reinforced walls, any Warmachine table would be enhanced. I love the crate mania but would like to see where you go with the future tech concept of cratage for the Infinity scene. I am still shopping for a versatile flavorful solution that transports well.

[fluger]

Now make sandbags!  I have yet to see good sandbags.  

[Mach_5]

So when's the kickstarter?

[JMGraham]

Thanks a million for the support!

 

Now make sandbags!  I have yet to see good sandbags.  

 

I tried a while back, but my sculpting was pretty weaksauce. I'll try gain sometime! There have to be some good ones out there, though - did you try Terranscapes?

 

 

So when's the kickstarter?

 

I'd run another Kickstarter if I needed to fund something bigger, but for now I'm just experimenting. If the experiments work out and I catch the bug, then maybe.

 

Hey - I've got questions about buildings. I can think of two ways to do them, but am not sure about which direction to go. The ideas I'm tossing around are:

 

1) Cast it as one solid piece (slush cast a resin skin and then fill with expandable foam). On the plus side, this would be the least expensive way to go, and would make some solid and detailed pieces. On the downside, you couldn't put models inside them, and the casting would require a technique with which I'm not familiar.

 

2) Cast it as walls only, with a separate roof (all in resin). On the plus side you could switch out roofs for variety, and could lift off the roof to put stuff inside. I'm also comfortable with the casting techniques I'd need for that. On the downside, it'd be much more expensive with all that resin.

 

Any thoughts? While #2 would be awesome for big buildings like warehouses (which I could fill with crates!), I think it'd also be prohibitively expensive. As many games abstract entering buildings, it may not be a big deal not to be able to go inside them. On the otherhand, an inside-outside Malifaux game would be awesome. It'd be a waste for games like Warhammer or Warmachine, though. Any thoughts?

[nathonicus]

I think resin building's sounds like a nightmare from a hobbyist point of view - trying to get large slabs of resin to stick together doesn't sound like much fun. I think the slush mold solid-piece is the way to go.

[Swan-of-War]

Can you get the same detail out of just foam? I've owned several Zitrdes buildings and the lightness factor is a big plus. Not as durable a resin I gather, but the price is right

[Swan-of-War]

BTW, beautiful stuff Jim!

[Swan-of-War]

I love to double post

[JMGraham]

There wouldn't be any assembly required if I went the resin route. I'd cast the 4 walls as one solid piece (think a box with no lid or bottom), and the roof as a separate piece that could be lifted off the walls. Still, thatd be much more complicated from a casting perspective.

 

I'm definitely going to try foam only. I picked up some of the self-skinning (ew) Foam-It from Smooth-on so I could give both with and without the resin shell a try. If the straight foam works well, that'd be great (and quicker and therefore cheaper to cast), but I am worried about detail and durability.

[esperatus]

I lean slightly towards option 2) removable roof. I just bought a Pegasus farm house with thatched roof. At $20 for a painted piece it was a great deal. I was slightly disappointed at not being able to put models inside for Bolt Action. At the same time as you say the rules are abstracted enough that just removing the models from the table was fine and as you also mentioned for Warmachine it seems mostly a LOS blocking feature so a solid piece is not a deal breaker

[Munkie]

Nice stuff Jim! But why is the building question an either/or? ;)

[JMGraham]

Yep, either-or. The original model would be completely different depending in the end intention. Alo, I have a habit of completely destroying my master models when creating my first mold. So no second chances. It's a gift, really. YOLO and all that,

 

Did some calculations and I think the removable roof would be ridiculously cost-prohibitive. Looking at the Pegasus stuff, I'm shocked at how cheap they can get buildings. Economy of scale and outsourcing production to China, I guess. It does have me looking at microbaloons and other fillers in order to bring costs down, though.

 

Because I have a thing for graves in my wargames, I spent yesterday casting up some of the mdf tombstones I had made for Walpurgis III in plaster. I spent last night carving them up and texturing them appropriately, and will make some stands of tombstones tonight to cast in resin. Some decaying steampunk graves should be a nice match with the mostly ruined stone walls. Nothing like a neglected family plot to spice up the gaming table.

[jollyork]

 

 

Sorry for the image spam

 

You actually posted that into a thread you created called Jim's Terrain Project Blog. Very funny. 

 

Your stuff is awesome. It's like you're becoming a one-man reinvention of Armorcast. Back in the day, I had boxes of their terrain: walls, crates, and buildings. I remember gluing together the resin building parts was quite a pain, though I appreciated being able to take the roofs off and put models inside, or even smashing some up for ruined buildings. One key point about their buildings (and fancier wall kits) were the modeling of connecter joins, like Tab A and Slot B on the pieces. Very handy, especially for holding superglue.