Grishnakh's Custom Terrain

[peterm]

Very nice Grishankh!
I'm still working on building a foam hill like I mentioned on HQ, but it will probably be awhile. I've cut out rough spots for the stairs to go, but I need to get myself a dremel or something to smooth it down.

[Rhetoric]

I'm working on following your instructions and have a question about them.

Step 1 says to paint the sides of the tiles with the thinned black to look like mud. This makes sense to me for the grass tiles.

Do you do something different for the rock tiles or the sand tiles? Do you paint the sides of the rock tile gray or just leave them brown?

Thanks!

[Grishnakh]

Originally Posted by Rhetoric

I'm working on following your instructions and have a question about them.

Step 1 says to paint the sides of the tiles with the thinned black to look like mud. This makes sense to me for the grass tiles.

Do you do something different for the rock tiles or the sand tiles? Do you paint the sides of the rock tile gray or just leave them brown?

Thanks!

I painted all of the sides of my tiles (grass, sand and rock) with a thin black wash to break up the solid brown color and so that it would represent mud that you might see if you sliced into the ground. If you just leave it the color of the plastic I personally think it doesn't blend in with the rest of the terrain. The wash of black clings to the recesses of the sides of the tiles and also, due to varying surface tension, it crawls around settling in different areas so that once dry you get a mottled effect of black on brown. At least that's what you should try for. You could paint it with a wash of sand color or grey color for rocks but I'm not sure how that would look. The idea is to use a darker color than the brown of the tile.

When I painted the green, sand, or grey color on the top of the tiles I let some of the color "spill over" slightly onto the sides so that it looks like the side of an embankment with some of the grass/sand/rock hanging over the edge. (Look closely at some of my photos and you will see this effect.) You do want to be careful here and not do this too much, especially with thick paint, or you will really change the tolerances of the tiles and effect their ability to lock together easily. Too much paint will make it hard to take them apart.

Hope that helps. Post pictures of how they came out when your done!

[AmishBurrito]

Wow, that terrain looks incredible, its hard to believe its minature, it looks like a real landscape.

[Myrmidian]

Very impressive stuff. My big question then is... how on earth do you store all this stuff? Storing the tiles to protect the flocking must be tough, but I can't imagine how you store the trees. Sheesh!

[SlikkRikk]

Truth - I can't seem to find a copy of the PDF you did on the first few posts. Where is it located? Thank you.

[truth]

It's at the bottom of the post on the front page of this site.

[Grishnakh]

Grishnakh’s Customized Terrain - Part IV - Rock Tiles



Here’s my fourth entry in my ongoing customized hex tiles thread. Above are some of my finished rock tiles in play. Here’s a quick step-by-step on how it’s done. (And by the way, dose are ma cousin's in the pitcure, Grishnakh.)

Materials:
You will need spray mount, matt board or illustration board, xacto knife, printer, large rocks, small rocks, gravel flocking (the same color that you use to flock your rock hex tiles with is best) and glue (tacky glue and for the larger rocks, a hot glue gun).

Step 1: Making the base
The first few steps are exactly like the tree/forest tutorial. First you print out the base template. I have made the hex shapes on the templates in such a way that they will perfectly fit onto a Heroscape hex tile without any overlap. (You will find the template at the end of the tree/forest tutorial.)

The next thing to do is to “lightly” spray mount the printed template onto a sheet of illustration board or colored matt board. Only spray the back of the printout, not the illustration board. The idea is temporarily hold the template onto the board while you cut it out. After you have spray mounted the template to your board it’s a simple matter to trim it out with an xacto knife. Use a metal straight edge. Peel off and throw away the printed template after you have trimmed out the hex base. (Again, see the tree tutorila for more information.)

One thing you do not want is to have the white edge of the board showing up against the terrain you place it on. Therefore you have to color in the edges of the base. The best way I’ve found is to use a broad tip marker such as a Design Marker to draw in the grey on the edges. Cool Grey Value # 5 works very well. Simply go around the edge of your base with the marker. It’s that easy.



If you’ve used illustration board the next step would be to paint the base with the same paint that you use on your tiles. In the case of my tiles I got a little more “artsy” and painted a dark grey first and then proceeded to dab in lighter and lighter areas of paint. I did this by mixing a grey with Mars Black, Titanium White and a little bit of Burnt Umber just to add a little dirt color to the mix.



Step 2: Planning the scenery elements:
The rocks that you use you will have to find. For the smaller debris surrounding my larger rocks I use grey gravel that I happen to have in some of the pathways around my house. These should be small (I’ve shown them with an xacto knife so you can get an idea of scale).



The larger rocks you just have to keep an eye out for. The best ones come in two colors, grey and brownish light grey. If they have one side that is flat all the better. It’s that side that you’ll glue to the base. Also look for rocks that look like scaled down versions of bigger boulders. If the rock has a layered sediment look all the better.

Next take your rocks and plan how they will fit on the base. By using real rocks you add weight to the scenery which in turn keeps it from being knocked around easily.



Step 3: Gluing it all down:
Now comes the easy part, gluing everything down. I use both Tacky glue and a hot glue gun. The Tacky glue works best to hold the smaller rocks down with. I use the glue gun to place the larger, heavier elements since it dries much faster and holds the rocks in place. It would be best (in the case of the Tacky glue) to let all of this dry overnight.



Step 4: Flocking:
Next comes the gravel flock. I try to spread the glue onto the base in a way that looks like piled up gravel. This is a great way to hide any glue that might be showing around the edges of the rocks or other imperfections. Afterwards dip the base into your flock and press it down with your finger if you need to. Refer to my previous customizing guides for more information about how to apply flock.



Here’s a couple of finished one hex rock tiles:



Once that dries then you can add in some dirt colored flock or grass if you’d like. You could also add bushes and static grass. I like to keep the other types of flock off of my rock tiles so I can use them to represent rock formations inside of caverns. I am, however, working on a set of rock tiles that will be used in forest settings by flocking the edges of the rock tiles with my grass flock and adding in bushes and grass.

Here’s some samples of some of my 4 hex rock tiles to give you ideas:



One last thing. Sometimes, when I’m done with a rock tile, I might brush a thin black wash of paint over areas that look too light in color. This helps tone those areas down and if done correctly will deepen the shadow areas.

That’s it! I’ve got even more terrain ideas up my sleeve so stay tuned....

And here are some samples of my tiles in play. (Sorry, I’m back to Games Workshop figures here. I do play Heroscape, trust me.)

[Malechi]

Originally Posted by Grishnakh

Heroscape came out at a time when I was producing my own three dimension hex maps for use with Metagaming’s The Fantasy Trip “Melee” and “Wizard”...

WHOA!

I was so obsessed with your pix I completely missed the intro as to what got you going on this! Ha! Ha! I am scrapping the HeroScape rules and playing Melee/Wizard from now on!

The 7-hex tiles are perfect! Why didn't I see that?

I am thinking about having Jim do my Advanced Melee, Advanced Wizard and Into the Labyrith in hardcover ... No more worries about dog-eared corners on 20 year old paper covers!

• For those unaware Melee has one of the most definitive combat systems ever created

I actually have Melee and Wizard sitting here next to me (the normal versions as Advanced is kept safely away) along with HeroScape, HeroQuest and Talisman items. Melee is the game that got me into gaming in the first place!

[Grishnakh]

Originally Posted by Malechi

WHOA!

I was so obsessed with your pix I completely missed the intro as to what got you going on this! Ha! Ha! I am scrapping the HeroScape rules and playing Melee/Wizard from now on!

The 7-hex tiles are perfect! Why didn't I see that?

I am thinking about having Jim do my Advanced Melee, Advanced Wizard and Into the Labyrith in hardcover ... No more worries about dog-eared corners on 20 year old paper covers!

• For those unaware Melee has one of the most definitive combat systems ever created

I actually have Melee and Wizard sitting here next to me (the normal versions as Advanced is kept safely away) along with HeroScape, HeroQuest and Talisman items. Melee is the game that got me into gaming in the first place!

The best by far! Still to this day even 25 years later! For those who don't know the system you can download everything ever published for this little jewel of a game here:

http://www.jgimmigration.com/tft/index.htm

No more dogged eared copies now! (My original copies are put away.)

Also, a new company called Dark City Games is publishing new adventures for Melee. You can visit the web site at:

http://www.darkcitygames.com/

Glad to meet another Melee fan! Cool! I've been using my Heroscape tiles to play Melee on ever since they first came out. In fact I've written up a set of rules for playing melee in the 3rd dimension. (It addresses things like engagement, force retreating, etc.) If you are interested in them PM me and I'll get then together in the next few days. I've also been rebasing some of the larger Heroscape figures to represent 4 hex dragons, etc.

[Barfodor]

Dude, all of that is really freaking awsome! It all looks soo much more real. I need to something like that to add to the environmetn at my games. Maybe more trees?

[Grishnakh]

Originally Posted by Barfodor

Dude, all of that is really freaking awsome! It all looks soo much more real. I need to something like that to add to the environmetn at my games. Maybe more trees?

Go for it. Just post some pictures of what you do if you try any of my techniques. I've really been curious lately what some of you come up with. Maybe someone will come up with an idea for a better way of doing some of this.