Custom Terrain by Porkins

[Porkins]

I've built enough custom terrain pieces now that I wanted to put up a display thread. Some of the items will have tutorials because I generally take pictures as I make them. I'll post these in reverse chronological order so you can see that as I learned and gained experience doing it, I gradually attempted more and more complex items. Browsing this forum for ideas and inspiration helped me a lot, as did looking at other sites. I also take ideas from actual objects I've seen.


Cloning Chamber. My entry into Lamaclown's first Trash-to-Treasure Custom Terrain contest. Tutorial.






Kingman, AZ Petro tank tutorial














Tucson I-10 water tank tutorial










Star Wars Rebel Power Generator from the planet Hoth:











Dice Tower tutorial:








Lava Terrain tutorial:







Simple fish tank trees. These were my first customs, made shortly after I got my first Heroscape set. Just stick 'em on with hot glue. One even has some rocks added in for the roots to climb over. Despite being so simple, they do add a lot to the battlefield, particularly if you don't have any jungle terrain.

[tcglkn]

Sweet. The Rebel Power Generator looks awesome.

[Hidicul]

Great looking stuff

[Scapemage]

Love that Star Wars piece!

[belgarath]

Great work! That water tower is awesome too.

[Yodaking]

Really digging the power generator, it is very recognizable. The water tower turned out good too, you just need to add a figure to the pic for size comparison. Or throw it on a game board so we can see how it fits on a map.

[Arch-vile]

These all look awesome Porkins. Lets see it on a map!

[Porkins]

You will! I've already taken the pictures on the map for both of the tanks, just need to get them uploaded. The water tank has a ladder up the back side of it visible in the picture that is specifically made to fit scape figures.

[Porkins]

Updated pictures of the tanks. Tutorials coming soon as well as a few more smaller projects I have at various stages of completion:

Dungeon Walls
Cell Phone towers
Road Barricades:

[Yodaking]

Those look great on the game board. The top of the water tower is pretty sweet with the not so obvious hexes. I also like the fact you can go underneath it to avoid a ranged figure camping on top. What did you use for the hand rail on those steps? Toothpicks?

[Porkins]

The upright pieces supporting the handrail are toothpicks, while the rails themselves and the remainder of the support structure are coffee stirrers. Same goes for the ladder on the other water tower.

[Grishnakh]

Dude, that's some pretty seriously cool stuff!

So many custom terrain builders ignore the fact that custom terrain has to work within the established terrain framework of the game. I can see that you've gone out of your way to make these tanks work. You should be very proud of these sitting on your game table. Great job!

A couple of questions: do you know exactly the level of each step on the petro tank? If not I would simply measure it and then mark it in small text next to each step. It would look like part numbers on the side of the petro tank for example and would be very small. That way, during a game, you can tell if a tall figure is adjacent to a small figure standing on a step.

Love the hexes on top of the water tower. Are you using my half hex rules for them or are you considering them full hexes?

Lastly, and yes - I know I'm OCD about these things - do you think you could base the water tower so that when it's placed it lines up exactly with the hexes? (Like you did with the petro tank.) That way the ladder lines up with the entry hex and you know exactly wether or not the supporting beams block movement? Don't know if it can be arranged to fit the hexes though. Or, if you're like my group, it doesn't so much matter since we play more friendly rather than competitive games.

Again, great stuff!