superfrog's custom terrain ($12 jungle tutorial)

[superfrog]

Hey folks!

I'm not sure how often I'll post in this thread, but I recently made a custom jungle set and was really pleased with how it turned out. It's heavily based on Grishnakh's custom jungle, but with a few modifications. So, here it is:

Materials:
1 cardboard box (shipping box cardboard, not cereal box cardboard)
6 twist ties, preferably green (you can steal these from the produce section at your local grocery store)
1 piece of cardstock, 8.5"x11"
3 green markers, or to taste
1 Naturally Coiled Wire by Ashland or Panacea Naturally Wired Wire (this is enough to make 2-3 sets)
1 each Top Fin Betta Grass and Top Fin Betta Plant
1 super glue tube
1 roll of tape
1 wire cutters or heavy duty scissors
1 pointy object (I use nail scissors)
1 brown paint, or to taste

Directions:

1. Cut each twist tie into 4 pieces. You'll now have 24 short lengths.


2. Use a glyph to trace and cut out 18 hexes from the cardboard. These should be slightly larger than a glyph.


3. Cut 15 pieces of wire that are each about 9 inches. That's slightly longer than the width of a piece of paper and slightly shorter than 6 cardboard hexes.


4. Cut 4 holes in one of your cardboard hexes with your pointy object.


5. Remove one of the plants from its sprue(?) and attach it to a twist tie as shown.


6. Thread the twist tie through the hole and bend the top and bottom parts back towards the center of the hex.


7. Repeat steps 5 and 6 with three other plants (two of each plant per hex, on opposite corners).

8. Tape down the twist ties on the bottom. I'm not sure this is necessary, but I do it anyway.


9. Get a new unpunched hex and tape that to the current hex on each of its 6 sides.


10. Paint the cardboard so it doesn't look so ugly.

11. Repeat steps 4-10 five more times.

12. Cut a hole in the middle of a cardboard hex as shown.


13. Bend 5 wires into long L-shapes as shown.


14. Starting with 2 and adding one at a time, twist your wires together about halfway up the length of the wire.


15. Stick the 5 top ends through the cardboard hex with the hole, and bring that all the way down to the bottom.


16. Bend over the tops as shown, and tape a new cardboard hex to the bottom as with the bushes. Trim the wire at the bottom if necessary so that it doesn't stick out the sides of your hex.


17. Cut a leaf shape out from your cardstock, create a center crease, and color it green. (Both sides).


18. Cut some slits (all the way to the center crease), and add some other colors to taste.


19. Apply super glue to the branch and then attach your leaf (start at the middle and then work your way to the end).


20. Repeat steps 17-19 four more times.

21. Paint the cardboard so it doesn't look so ugly.

22. Repeat steps 12-21 two more times.

23 (Optional). Get these super cool hex attachers from White Knight so your trees stop falling over.

[Pumpkin_King]

Wow! These look great for being so low cost.

[BiggaBullfrog]

At first I was thinking $12 is a crazy low amount for some jungle terrain. Then I saw your dollar saving method:

Originally Posted by superfrog

(you can steal these from the produce section at your local grocery store)

In all seriousness, this is a great tutorial. Very easy method but with quality results that I would be more than happy to have. I especially like the partial hex to hold the pieces in place -- great idea and use of 3d printing to help. Do you have the stl file that you could link in that part of the tutorial? It would make it easier for those with access to a 3d printer.

[superfrog]

White Knight made those for me, and I believe the file is linked in the OP of the index of stl files in the custom terrain section.

[TREX]

Ive always been a fan of Grish's palm trees. At the optional step wouldnt it make more sense to just 3d print a full hex tile and hot glue all of it to the base? Its really not that pricey to print the individual tiles for single based trees. End result would save you some time, and time is money. As a fellow terrain builder, those are my pennies

[superfrog]

Originally Posted by TREX

Ive always been a fan of Grish's palm trees. At the optional step wouldnt it make more sense to just 3d print a full hex tile and hot glue all of it to the base? Its really not that pricey to print the individual tiles for single based trees. End result would save you some time, and time is money. As a fellow terrain builder, those are my pennies

In my experience, the hot glue doesn't stick very well to the natural wire, so I was trying to avoid that. I made a set using this method several years ago, and the glue kept peeling off the wire.

I did realize when putting on the hex inserts that I could have used a 5-sided hex just as easily. Maybe next time (although I've got enough for two sets now, and that's probably good enough for me).