el-remmen
Moderator Emeritus
I have one I sometimes use for very light dry brushing.
D&D General DIY xps foam terrain. Videos? Pics? Advice?
- Thread starter not-so-newguy
- Start date
I have one I sometimes use for very light dry brushing.
not-so-newguy
Legend
TL;DR Before i just needed to worry about books and papers, but now i have semi-fragile terrain to carry. Any advice on transporting your stuff to the game?
I'm going to make some XPS tiles with scatter terrain for wilderness encounters as the group explores the Isle of Dread. We have a great place to play that has a large table, but I still need to transport my hours of work to the game every week. This includes walking the stuff a couple of blocks down a sidewalk with plenty of foot traffic.
The point I'm trying to make here is that Durability is essential, or else all I am going to create is a pile of garbage in a month or two. Nobody needs that.
I broke apart one of the flimsy linoleum tiles I bought with cardboard attached to the sticky side. I'm going to use these for bases of my scatter terrain. I bought a bunch of plastic palm trees and bushes to attach to the bases.
Four xps foam boards (Roughly 1 foot square, 1/2 inch thick) will be used as the "ground level" for the encounters. I considered just using the table as ground level, but I wanted an excuse to use epoxy to create some water effects. I'll probably use the table as ground level with scatter terrain in the future.
Here's my d&d luggage
I'm going to make some XPS tiles with scatter terrain for wilderness encounters as the group explores the Isle of Dread. We have a great place to play that has a large table, but I still need to transport my hours of work to the game every week. This includes walking the stuff a couple of blocks down a sidewalk with plenty of foot traffic.
The point I'm trying to make here is that Durability is essential, or else all I am going to create is a pile of garbage in a month or two. Nobody needs that.
I broke apart one of the flimsy linoleum tiles I bought with cardboard attached to the sticky side. I'm going to use these for bases of my scatter terrain. I bought a bunch of plastic palm trees and bushes to attach to the bases.
Four xps foam boards (Roughly 1 foot square, 1/2 inch thick) will be used as the "ground level" for the encounters. I considered just using the table as ground level, but I wanted an excuse to use epoxy to create some water effects. I'll probably use the table as ground level with scatter terrain in the future.
Here's my d&d luggage
el-remmen
Moderator Emeritus
I finally got a chance to watch this closely and this DOES look like an effective and relatively simply approach. Unfortunately, I think I would have had to implement it much earlier in my process to make it work. I applied the first layer of what I am called "PVA swamp sludge" and it look okay but not great. What I probably should have done was use a much thicker XPS base with a deeper carved out moat and then glued some water tiles into that space. Oh well. I may still be able to salvage it.
not-so-newguy
Legend
You might try putting a layer of spackle over the PVA?
el-remmen
Moderator Emeritus
I think it would be too thick at this point and would require ripping the fort off the base and trying over from the start - which I want to avoid. I actually have another of these cardboard insert things (the box came with two), so if I am every crazy enough to make another fort (or the back side of this fort), I might try a different method - but right now I am eager to finish this so I can move back to painting some minis for an upcoming adventure.
not-so-newguy
Legend
Made my first scatter terrain
el-remmen
Moderator Emeritus
This guy's advice is pretty good. I thought the one about not being afraid to strip your models was going to go in the opposite direction and say lean into your "oopsies" and make something cool (which is what I try to do). Then again, I am never paying more than $10 or $15 for a mini. Also, his "don't wait for the expensive 'good' stuff" advice is great because after painting and making stuff for a couple of years now I only use cheap brushes and use craft paint and stuff specifically meant for the hobby interchangeably!
el-remmen
Moderator Emeritus
Okay. . . here we go. . . the Keep is done, as is the water effect - came out a little bluer than I wanted but before that it looked too green to look like water so I but a blue wash on it before coating it with glossy mod podge.
Planning to occupy it with a bunch of guard minis and do a video showing it off - If I don't get to post it here, it will be on instagram and twitter for certain.
Planning to occupy it with a bunch of guard minis and do a video showing it off - If I don't get to post it here, it will be on instagram and twitter for certain.
not-so-newguy
Legend
Looks like it'll be fun to use with all the different levels. I think going with the ramps, instead of stairs, within the keep was a good choice because it'll help with miniature placement.
The PVA/mod podge water effect looks awesome too!
The PVA/mod podge water effect looks awesome too!
dave2008
Legend
Looking good! Makes me want to get back into this type of work. I think when I retire I want to spend my time making 3D D&D battlemaps and miniatures!
Last edited:
Similar Threads
