Buying terrain can get a little expensive, well a lot expensive. Lucky for us is that a lot of the materials you need to make a table full of terrain are really not all that expensive and can be made using things probably already around the house.
I recently made a bunch of terrain (about 2 months ago now), and spent very little doing so. The goal was to create a new feel to the gaming tables and create something very usable. So while I did add trees to a lot of this terrain, you do not need to... after all its an added expense.
So I start with styrofoam because its something that we tend to get in a lot of things you buy, so its plentiful and cheap. Now I know the pink and blue foam sheets are often a little better to work with, but today we are going to use the normal styrofoam that you would have gotten from your latest computer, TV, or other purchases. We will mention the basics as to not melt or destroy our foam.
1st off... The Styrofoam. Any will do and the odd shapes can really help do some fun stuff. Just for fun I will show off my Wife's village at the end of this article (assuming I don't forget) that I recently also created for her Christmas Display using styrofoam.
Styrofoam melts. Yep it melts under a hot glue gun on a high setting and it melts when sprayed with spray paints. So there are some things to take into consideration.
First off how to cut.
Don't go for the wire foam cutters. The wires break. The wire cutters are more expensive to buy. Instead use what they use for foam insulation, a hot knife. It looks like this and works amazingly well for all sizes of cuts and even sculpting your rocks. Plus its fast because it has a big surface that heats up.
Did I mention they were very cheap? Yep..... It does not need to be fancy. Harbour Freight sold me mine for around $20 USD. Works great.... and I have used mine over and over. No issues. One of the best items you pick up from Harbour Freight. This one tends to last a long time.
https://www.harborfreight.com/130-Watt-Heavy-Duty-Hot-Knife-60313.html
This makes cutting your foam a breeze. Please do it outside or in a garage with ventilation. Burning styrofoam is not good for your lungs. Wear a mask.
Gluing the Foam
Now that you have shaped the foam into what you want and how it will look, its time to do any gluing for your terrain. A hot glue gun with a high and low setting does the trick. Use the Low Setting to not burn a hole through the styrofoam with your glue. It does not take much glue to hold these together.
Note that I use the flat edge of the knife to burn and melt the surface of the foam. This makes it a little bit more rigid and stronger overall once we apply our latex paint (see below), plus this is terrain.... does not need to be uniform.
Coating the Foam
Now this ones important. I have tried several different coatings for styrofoam and the best one I have discovered is latex paint. Its best if you have some laying around the house in storage. Most home owners have this, or you can go pick some up for cheap. The purpose to not only protect the foam when we paint it, but to strengthen it as well making it much more rigid.
Apply the paint quickly and loosely if its just terrain. If you are doing some other sculpting you will have to more careful. Try and not leave it in big globs in the corners of terrain though as this will greatly increase the dry time. I always do one coat, but if you want it thicker you can always do a second.
Painting the Foam
Now I put away the brushes. This is the biggest expense for me, as I tend to like to have lots of colors for this. You can go as complex or as daring as you like, but I tend to purchase camo spray paints. Here is a selection of my spray cans.
and the terrain after painting
This makes painting your new terrain super fast. I dont even wait for them to dry before switching colors, as just jump right in. The Latex Paint will hold the spray paint very well. Normally I start dark with a dark brown or black and then work my way up to light tan and some greens for highlights.
Wrapping it up
The devil's in the details for your terrain. For this I normally step outside or with some small branches from the yard or forest behind me. You can also get some small fine rocks if you have some nearby or use something like crushed walnut from the local hobby store. Craft stores are a great place as well to pick up some plastic plants that you can cut down to appropriate sizes for some cool terrain.
here is a look at some miscellaneous things to add to your terrain. Lichens sticks and plastic plant stuff from the craft store.
In this case though I wanted some evergreen trees for my forest. ( a little more Oregon-Like). So I went to the local train store and picked up some wire tree trunks and the foliage that goes with it. I tend to use a spray on glue on these trees after they set up just to keep them a little more stuck during gaming sessions.
Here are some pics of the final products
On the game table
Closet full of terrain made this way. We can talk about the buildings another time.
Also just because I did remember. This year I made a new mountain and setting for my wife's Christmas Village has dimensions of 48"x40".
