Grishnakh's Custom Terrain

[Grishnakh]

Grishnakh's Custom Terrain (GCT)

Here is an Index for my Tutorials. The links will take you to the pages that contain my tutorials to date.

Page 1
Grishnakh’s Customized Terrain - Part 1 - Hex Tiles (Scroll down, it's part of this this post!)
Grishnakh’s Customized Terrain - Part II - Stream/River/Lake Edges

Page 2
Grishnakh’s Customized Terrain - more photographs of my custom tiles in play
Grishnakh’s Customized Terrain - Part III - Trees
Grishnakh's House Rules for Tree/Forest Hexes

Page 3
Grishnakh’s Customized Terrain - Part IV - Rock Tiles

Page 5
Grishnakh’s Customized Terrain - Part V - Scenery Bases

Page 6
Grishnakh's Customized Terrain - Part VI - Pine trees on a small embankment
Grishnakh’s Customized Thread - Other Game Board Features - House/Inn
Grishnakh’s Customized Thread - Other Game Board Features - Orc Catapult
Grishnakh’s Customized Thread - Other Game Board Features - Gargoyles

Page 10
Grishnakh’s Customized Terrain - Part VII - Old Columns

Page 18
Grishnakh’s Customized Terrain - Part VIII - Water Jungle Plants

Page 22
Grishnakh’s Customized Terrain - Part IX - Sparkly Water Tiles - Revised!

Page 27
Grishnakh’s Customized Terrain - Part X - SotM Swamp Water Tiles
Grishnakh’s Customized Terrain - Part X - SotM Swamp Marshland Tiles

Page 30
Grishnakh’s Customized Terrain - Part XI - Jungle Palm Trees
Grishnakh’s Customized Terrain - Part XI - Jungle - Palm Trees and Jungle Bushes House Rules - Revised 2/11/08

Page 31
Photo's of a Flocked Swamp Set in Play

Page 45
Photo's my Sci/Fi Terrain in Play

Page 54
Grishnakh’s Customized Terrain - Painted Dungeon Tiles

Happy Meal Megamind Toy - Fuel Dump
Page 57
Grishnakh’s Customized Terrain - Happy Meal Megamind Toy
Page 58
Grishnakh’s Customized Terrain - Happy Meal Megamind Toy Finished Pictures
Page 59
Grishnakh’s Customized Terrain - Happy Meal Megamind Toy Fuel Dump Card

Page 58
Grishnakh’s Customized Terrain - Lava Tutorial

And here are some links to some of my other pages that might be of interest

Grishnakh’s Custom Dungeon Plans
Grishnakh’s Custom Dungeon Plans - Another Option
Grishnakh’s Battle of Helms Deep



A quick announcement: I've just recently decided to alter the way I post my custom terrain. Since I started sharing my custom terrain with the community I've been putting all of my custom creations in one thread. This system has worked well for me in the past, but as you can see this thread has simply grown way too big. Items are getting lost in the sheer number of posts. For a while I've just kept growing the front page and tacking on new items to the end of the thread. But even now this is getting a bit ridiculous.

Now, to avoid confusion with "The Books Of" threads I'm creating my own category which I call "A Custom Terrain Project/Guide". I plan to link all of these individual threads to this main thread. All general comments will still go through here but comments about specific terrain will go in the individual threads. I will eventually transfer all of my custom creations to their individual threads.

This will not happen over night. It's a big undertaking. However I think it will clean up my custom terrain guides and make it easier for new and old members to find and access them.

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• Here's the link to download the GCT, Mid-sized Office Building:
http://www.heroscapers.com/community/showthread.php?p=1981132#post1981132

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• Here's the link to download the GCT, Fantastic 4 Baxter Building:
http://www.heroscapers.com/community/showthread.php?t=48891

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• Here's the link to download the GCT Daily Planet:
http://www.heroscapers.com/community/showthread.php?t=48088

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• Here's the link to download the GCT Six Story Office Building and Jewelry Store:
http://www.heroscapers.com/community/showthread.php?t=47711

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• Here's the link to download the 2nd edition, revised GCT Superhero ITF single page reference chart:
http://www.heroscapers.com/community/downloads.php?do=file&id=3841​

When our group plays SuperScape using my Interactive Terrain Features I started noticing how difficult it was to keep track of the stats of the various objects on the battlefield. Having a Heroscape style card for each item meant more cards scattered around on an already crowded table top. Plus having only one card for each type of object meant people were constantly asking to see the card, which meant a search to find where the last person had put it.

Then it occurred to me, heck, I'm a gamer, I'm used to games that have charts and tables. What if I just put all of my ITF's on a single page chart and scatter a few of those around the table. That way players could reference an item easily and even plan ahead what they were going to do without anyone else getting a clue as to what they were plotting. So I threw together a quick chart and tried it out.

It worked like a charm.

So, from now on, I'm breaking further away from Heroscape tradition and using charts for all my ITFs in my Superscape games. I'll probably still make cards for any newer items I create in the future, just to satisfy the purists amongst us. But honestly, using this chart just works so much better.

It's also a great way to see the progression of damage and usage penalties of objects. Using this as a guide it also becomes easier to create stats for your own objects, and get them to match the already existing objects on the chart. The custom figure creators on this site have it easy in this regard, they just find an already produced painted miniature and create a card around it. Custom terrain is more difficult. I have no idea what you might find that you can use for your terrain in a dollar store, a toy store, etc. I've tried to offer suggestions, even building plans, but there's no hard and fast rule here. Use what you can find, and if you have the talent to do so, build or create whatever you want. Then use my stats for your item, or use my stats as a starting point and create your own stats for your item.

Changes:
For those of you who utilize my approach to handling objects on the battlefield you might note a few alterations to the stats from my previous cards. After playing numerous games I decided to add in extra damage when you both throw and smash with Huge and now, Immense items. The weight of the object, along with the force it's being thrown or smashed with, has to come into play.

I also altered the explosion of the Oil Drum and Tanker Truck slightly to get it more in line with the other items that explode. And the phone booth can now be used to smash figures in one or two hexes.

There are three new items as well: The Building AC Unit, a Train Car, and a Rocket. I hope to have a printable model of the train (complete with throwable, smashable train tracks) sometime at the beginning of next year. The rocket I use came out of a cheap Toys'R'Us play set. I think I posted something about it in a previous post.

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• Here's the link to download the GCT Rules for Skyscrapers
and Elevators as well as Instructions for building The Daily Planet:
http://www.heroscapers.com/community/downloads.php?do=file&id=3756

• Click this link to download all of the Elevator Cards:
http://www.heroscapers.com/community/downloads.php?do=file&id=3758

• Click this link to download the Elevator Markers:
http://www.heroscapers.com/community/downloads.php?do=file&id=3760

• Click this link to download all of the Optional, Destructible Elevator Cards:
http://www.heroscapers.com/community/downloads.php?do=file&id=3759

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Thanks for all the compliments and positive rep about my recent buildings!

That's all for now! -Grishnakh


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[Grishnakh]

Grishnakh's Custom Terrain (GCT) Presents:

NEW!!!

Exploding Oil Tanker

and Burning Wreckage ITFs!!


I just finished the final play test on my newest Interactive Terrain Feature and it's finally ready to release!

If you Throw the truck then you do not have to worry about it's explosive effects. The only problem is, if it's caught, you've just given your enemy a lethal weapon to throw back at you!

However, if you Smash with it your opponent has no chance of catching it. But you will be caught in the explosion - as well as everyone else nearby!

After the Tanker has been destroyed it leaves blackened, burning piles of wreckage behind. Imagine Hulk picking up a burning engine block and hurling it with tremendous force! But there's even more danger - you could get just as burned as your intended victim!

Decisions, decisions!

So, for even more Comic Book style Destruction and Mayhem in your games I present the first addition to GCT!

Enjoy!
- Grishnakh


Click this link to download my Interactive Terrain Feature: Oil Tanker Truck:
http://www.heroscapers.com/community/downloads.php?do=file&id=3578

Click this link to download my Interactive Terrain Feature: Burning Wreckage:
http://www.heroscapers.com/community/downloads.php?do=file&id=3579

Click this link to download my Interactive Terrain Feature: Burning Wreckage Glyphs:
http://www.heroscapers.com/community/downloads.php?do=file&id=3580

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The Oil Tanker Truck model I use is made by "Fast Lane". It's a Toys"R'Us exclusive and can be easily found in one of their stores or online. It's in the correct scale to the figures ("O" scale) and easily fits on 5 hexes.

Pictures of the Oil Tanker Truck in play:

That's all for now! -Grishnakh



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GCT (Grishnakh's Custom Terrain)

Interactive Terrain Features (ITFs)

Rule Booklet and Master Set!!

In this edition of Grishnakh's Custom Terrain (or CGT) I present a new and different take on battlefield objects. I call these objects "Interactive Terrain Features". These rules were designed to be used not only with C3G's custom superhero figures, but also with the Heros of Star Wars customs and classic 'Scape.

Not only is this a set of rules to play my first wave of ITFs with, it’s also a set of guidelines you can use to create your own battlefield objects. If you have an existing item, or have something that you'd like to create, it should be a simple matter to plug them into my rules. In fact I look forward to what other people in the community can come up with!

Most of the information you will need to play my specific ITFs with is located on the individual cards for each item. I've put them all into a single download for ease of use.

So thanks for checking this out! I hope you find it both usable and fun. My plan is that Grishnakh’s Custom Terrain is something that I can continue to add to and to build on in the future. In fact I'm currently working on a new set of cards which will include Tanker Trucks, Burning Wreckage, Bulldozers and much more!

Click this link to download my Interactive Terrain Features Rules:
http://www.heroscapers.com/community/downloads.php?do=file&id=3472/Rules

Click this link to download my Interactive Terrain Features Cards:
http://www.heroscapers.com/community/downloads.php?do=file&id=3473/Cards

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SuperScape Buildings and Rules

As many of you know I’ve been creating custom terrain for Heroscape since it first came out. I think it’s really cool that so many of you have taken the plunge, used my tutorials, and flocked your own hex terrain, made trees, created lava, etc.

Since the era of FanScape is now upon us and no new, official terrain is being created, I have decided to branch out in an entirely new direction and attempt to fill that void. I’ve been inspired by the many brilliant custom figures being currently created. (There’s such a wealth of creativity in this community. Hasbro had no idea what they had.) To be perfectly honest I think that the custom figures that the C3G team have been creating have provided a breathe of fresh air into a game that was threatening to go stale for me. Playing with the C3G figures jump started my interest in creating new terrain for these Superheroes to climb onto, move around, fly over, etc. This booklet (and its accompanying pdf files) have been the result of that interest.

So thanks for checking this out! I hope you find it both usable and fun. My plan is that Grishnakh’s Custom Terrain (or GCT) is something that I can continue to add to and to build on in the future. In fact this is just part one of a two part project. Part two, Interactive Terrain Features, is currently being play tested - so stay tuned!

http://www.heroscapers.com/communit...=3313/SuperScape Buildings how to booklet.pdf

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NEW!!!

9/26/11

Two Story Building!

This building utilizes the same roof and base as previous buildings. You'll need a printout of these two items, as well as the instructions, to assemble this building.
​

Click this link to download the Front and Back:
http://www.heroscapers.com/community/downloads.php?do=file&id=3414

Click this link to download the two sides:
http://www.heroscapers.com/community/downloads.php?do=file&id=3415


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http://www.heroscapers.com/community/downloads.php?do=file&id=3314/One Story Building 01.pdf

http://www.heroscapers.com/community/downloads.php?do=file&id=3315/Generic 7 x 7.25 Roof.pdf

http://www.heroscapers.com/communit...le&id=3317/7 x 7.25 Partial Base Template.pdf

http://www.heroscapers.com/community/downloads.php?do=file&id=3316/7 x 7.25 Full Base Template.pdf

http://www.heroscapers.com/community/downloads.php?do=file&id=3318/Three Story Building Front 01.pdf

http://www.heroscapers.com/community/downloads.php?do=file&id=3319/Three Story Building Back 01.pdf

http://www.heroscapers.com/communit...le&id=3320/Three Story Building Side a 01.pdf

http://www.heroscapers.com/communit...le&id=3321/Three Story Building Side b 01.pdf


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[Grishnakh]

Grishnakh’s Customized Terrain - Part 1 - Hex Tiles

(Many of you remember this from the old days of HQ. I am reposting this thread here and will be posting new installments as I have them ready. If anybody has attempted to customize any Heroscape hex tiles I would love to see them posted here.)

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”. For those of you not familiar with “Melee” and “Wizard” it is a hex based game using miniature figures that was very popular in the late 70’s and early 80’s. I’ve always envied the beautiful setups that Warhammer players create with their scenery and really wanted a way to bring that over to a hex based game. So I started cutting hexes out of flocked foam core with great success, the only difficulty was not being able to lock the hexes together to keep them from sliding apart (that and the time required to produce the hexes).

The Heroscape tiles, of course, changed that. While the tile size itself is larger than what I wanted the beauty of the locking tiles convinced me to scrap what I was working on and move over to the Heroscape tiles.

But even though the Heroscape tiles looked pretty good straight out of the box I felt they still looked too “plastic” and unreal. The brown highlighted the hexes way too much for my tastes and made everything look like “hex world”, plus the color scheme left a lot to be desired. So, taking inspiration from Games Workshop and what I had been previously doing, I bought a master set, got out some paint and some flock and after much trial and error (as well as many trips to the hobby store and the craft store) I arrived at a procedure that looked pretty good on my test tiles,

The next step was to paint and flock a whole master set. At first this seemed like a daunting task but after I got started it went pretty fast. I’m pretty happy with the way it turned out. Painting out the brown on the top of the hex tile goes a long way to tone down the hexes while still allowing you to easily see them. Add in some terrain features like trees and rocks and it looks even better. I’m in the process of flocking a couple of more master sets as well as experimenting with other modeled terrain ideas that I have. Hopefully this will be an ongoing thread that I can add more modeling tips to as I do them.

Therefore, for the benefit of the community, I thought I’d share my procedure of painting and flocking Heroscape master set hex tiles.

(A side note: while I originally bought Heroscape for the terrain only I soon came to enjoy playing the game system as well and have been hooked ever since.)

Materials:

You will need black acrylic paint, Elmers glue in a squeeze bottle, water, a medium, flat paint brush, gray, tan and green paint, three types of flock and a set of Heroscape hex tiles.

The flock should be stored in large, Ziplock freezer bags. I will discuss the paint and the flock colors in a minute.

Step 1. The sides of the hex tile:
The idea is to make the tile look more like mud and rock without doing anything to impede the tiles ability to slip together. Too much paint will throw off the tolerances and not allow the tiles to fit together properly. Even after they are painted correctly they might be a little tough to get together for the first few times. As the paint wears off it only adds to the look so don’t be concerned if some of it chips.

I used Mars Black acrylic paint thinned down to the consistency of ink. You can stack many hexes of the same type and hold them together with your off hand and simply paint the black on the edges. You’ll want to leave some of the brown showing through and if your paint is the right consistency it will bead up and crawl around on the surface exposing some of the brown. Again, keep it thin.

Step 2. The top of the hex tile:
The next step is to paint the brown portion of the hex the color of the type of tile it is. Green for grass, gray for rocks and tan for dirt. I did not want to mix this paint from the acrylic paints that I had. The problem would be matching the colors months later when I had the time to flock another set. I realized that I would be better off using a craft paint straight out of the tube to achieve this. Acrylic craft paint comes in a wide range of colors and I thought I would have no problem finding something that not only looked good but also matched the color of the flock I had picked out. As it turned out it actually took me a long time to find what I wanted. Most craft colors were too pastel or intense or simply looked bad. After a lot of trial and error I arrived at these three paints:

Green Grass: Delta Ceramcoat - Seminole Green
Tan Dirt/Sand: FolkArt - # 237 Fawn
Gray Rocks: FolkArt - # 425 Medium Gray

At first I was just going to paint the brown on the hex tile since the flocking was going to be covering the actual tile area itself but as I was working on it I starting thinking about what would happen in the future if the flocking started to wear off in small places revealing the original tile color underneath. At that point I started painting the whole surface. However I did use thinner paint on the raised molded surface of the tile just to save a little time and to stretch the paint a little. It a great idea to let some of the paint fall down the edge of the tile onto the sides. When they are all stacked together this looks like moss growing on the cracks of the rocks. Don’t overdo this however, it should only be done slightly.

Step 3: Gluing the flock:
Flocking is available at most hobby stores that carry model railroad supplies. There are a lot of different colors of flock to represent the different types of ground cover railroad enthusiasts model. Again, I needed something that looked good and closely matched the paint I was using. My final choices were:

Green Grass: Green Blend - Blended Turf T49
Tan Dirt/Sand: Earth Blend T50
Gray Rocks: Ballast - Medium Gray B82

To glue the flock on I used Elmers glue (with the orange cap) in a mid size bottle for ease of handling. I needed to be able to control exactly where the glue was going and with the orange cap I could literally “draw” with the glue. The idea is to draw a bead of glue around the edges of the raised portion of the tile and then loosely fill in the middle part of the hex. I then used an old, flat paint brush to spread the glue around the hex evenly. You want the glue to be thick without being too thick. My only suggestion if you try this is to experiment on some scrap cardboard first. Too much glue and the flock will sink into the glue and dry with a hard look, too little and the flock will simply not adhere.

I keep my flock in large, freezer size, gallon, zip lock bags. If you’ve never worked with flock before it is very fine and can go everywhere. I work on a large piece of white paper. That way, as it spills, I can pick up the paper and pour the flock back into my zip lock bag. After you’ve got the glue on the tile it’s time to push it into the flocking. Simply bury it into the flock being careful you don’t get any glue on the inside of your zip lock bag. Move it around a little bit under the flocking, pull it out and then shake the excess off by tapping the edge of the tile onto the table. Don’t be surprised if a lot of flocking falls off.

If you find some of the flocking clumps up you can take your finger and lightly press it down into the glue. I usually go ahead and do this anyway as a personal preference.

I found that on the larger pieces I could spread glue around on five or six hexes before I would stick it into the flock. If you do more you run the risk of the glue glazing over and not allow enough flock to stick to the tile.

The other concern is that you have to make sure you don’t get glue on the nonraised section of the tile. If you do the flock will stick to this and once dry it will interfere with the tiles ability to stack with another tile. This is especially important on the rock tiles since the rock you are glueing on is thicker than the grass/dirt flock material. If you get too much glue on the tile or if the glue runs simply wipe it off with a corner of a wet paper towel or scrap it away with an exacto knife.

Depending on the amount of glue you use you might see some of the flock sink in and leave white areas on the surface of the tile. This is not a problem as the glue will dry clear.

Here’s a photo of some finished tiles:

Step 4: Sealing:

As you play the miniatures will knock the flocking off. It’s a simple fact of miniature wargaming. You can do a lot to keep this from happening by sealing the flocking with a spray varnish. However, some varnishes, like Krylon for example, change the way the flock looks in undesirable ways. The only spray varnish that I have found to work is Testors #1260 - Dullcote. And even then you don’t want to spray it on too thick and you don’t want too much of it on the sides of your tiles. I generally lock all of my tiles together in one flat spread and spray the varnish on in a wide side to side motion.

A note about warping. I have found that if you do not store the hex tiles stacked together and flat they can warp slightly. This is really true with the rocks if you’ve used a lot of glue. The glue shrinks slightly when it dries and it can warp the plastic slightly. The only solution I have at the moment is to very carefully try to bend it back to it’s original shape.

That’s it. Later on, as I have time available, I’ll talk about modeling better looking trees and rocks and dungeon rooms. If anyone has any modeling tips they’ve tried with these tiles I would like to hear from you. Hope you find this useful!

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Here are some shots of my finished tiles in play: (From a multiplayer Melee/Wizards game, all figures are from my collection and most are old GamesWorkshop figures.)

A group of adventurers searching for the lost “Orbs of Power” happen across an Orb on a hill top deep in the wilderness. Unfortunately one of the Dark Warlord’s Red Wizards has found the Orb as well and has summoned a host of undead to challenge the adventurers.

The Red Wizard and his undead forces:

The adventures:

A view from the hill:

“Curse you all”

The battle is joined:

The Wizard and the Elve move off to the side throwing spells and shooting arrows into the enemy: (Note the static grass and rocks added to the water tile.)

Suddenly, from around the ruins of a Dwarven statue, a party of orcs appear intent on claiming the Orb for themselves!

The adventurers are flanked, all they can do is turn to face this new threat:

The adventurers Wizard summons a Gargoyle in a bid to grab the Orb from its pedestal:

A couple of views of the battle:

One of the adventurers goes down (we represent dead bodies by using red blood markers). If you look closely in the background you will see an orc running behind the skeletons to try and grab the Orb. Meanwhile the Wizards Gargoyle is fighting his way to the Orb as well.

To be continued. Next up: Stream/River/Lake Edges

 

[InfinityMax]

Oh, man, that was awesome. I love your work, man. I salivate at your awesome terrain.

 

[Venom]

its like heroscape the next generation

 

[Doc_Savage]

That is great looking terrain, and the figures are great too!

 

[Agent Minivann]

Same thing I said on the first two postings on HQ.

 

[sigm0t]

Holy cow! That is friggin' sweet. Wish I had the space and patience to try some of that.

 

[Turtleboy]

i wish i could give more than 2 of those! Awsome job man, looks nice! im really gonna have to do this stuff once i get a job!

 

[SlikkRikk]

Wow, um, geez, uh ... wow.

You rock.

 

[Stalkingwolf]

Grishnakh,

Thank you for taking the time to share this with the community! It is very helpful.

 

[DarkSpade]

If it weren't for the fact that you need to be more careful storeing flocked tiles, I would soooo do this to my sets.



(okay, lazyness is an even bigger obsticale for me....)

 

[Grishnakh]

Grishnakh’s Customized Terrain - Part II - Stream/River/Lake Edges

Here’s my next entry in my ongoing customized hex tiles thread. Above is one of my finished stream edge water tiles complete with tall reeds/grass. Here’s a step-by-step on how it’s done:

Materials:
You will need black, burnt sienna and white acrylic paint, Elmers glue in a squeeze bottle, water, a small paint brush, two colors of rock flocking material, field grass and some Heroscape water hex tiles.

The rock flocking material should be stored in large Ziplock bags. You will need brown and light gray. (Sorry I don’t have the numbers for the type I used, I threw away the package a long time ago. The brown should match the burnt sienna paint and the gray is a light gray.)

Note: When I refer to “flocking” throughout this tutorial I will mean the hard rock material, not the soft sponge like flocking that I used to create the grass in the previous tutorial.)

You will also need small gravel to represent boulders. I look for gravel that is gray in color, small, and most specifically rocks that have a flat side to them. I’ll glue the flat side down in a later step.

Here’s some reference shots out of a book that sort of shows the look I’m going for:

Step 1: Planning
The first thing to do is to plan which edges of the water tile you are going to model. I find that I use two different types, water tiles modeled on two sides and water tiles modeled on three sides. Using these I can put together a wide range of water situations like lakes and streams. The red shaded area in the pictures below show the area(s) that I’ll be working on.

Two hex sides:

Three hex sides:

In planning this out you’ve got to leave enough room on the tile so a figure will be able to fit on it. By keeping it to the side and not letting the rock(s) extend too far out onto the tile you should have no problem with this.

Note: I personally use Games Workshop bases to base my figures. They come in two different sizes, medium (shown on the human) and large (shown on the orc). And yes, that’s a Heroscape glyph being used as the base of the larger troll figure.

You have to move them around and prop them up sometimes on the rocks but overall it works out OK. Here’s how my figures fit on the finished tiles (by the way, facing is important in Melee, that’s why I have all of my figures based on squares or hexes and not rounds.):

Step 2: Painting

The first thing you do is to paint the edge of the tile you are going to model black. You paint the black paint right up to the edge of the tile but make sure you don’t slop the paint over the edge and onto the sides of the tile. This will throw off the tolerance and will make the tile difficult to put together with other tiles. Here are two tiles painted in correctly.

And here are a total of 10 tiles painted. The upper right two tiles are three sided tiles while the rest are two.

The next step is to dab on the burnt sienna. I’ll mix this paint with a little white to help make it more opaque. (Little being the important word here, it doesn’t take much.) Again take it all the way to the edge. The importance of this will be apparent later.

Painting the brown:

The finished step:

The painted tiles:

Step 3: Flocking

The next step is to add the glue and the flocking. As in my previous tutorial I am using Elmers glue with a squeeze top to “draw” with the glue. Notice how I draw a bead of glue staying slightly away from the edge of the tile. This is to keep any of the flocking from interfering with the tiles ability to lock into another tile. The reason for the paint in the step 2 is to cover the blue tile wherever you don’t glue on the flocking. That way you won’t have water areas showing right next to the shore line.

I then draw in the rest of the glue:

Here’s all of the glue in place:

Next you dip it into the flocking, pull it out, tap it to remove the excess flocking and then lightly push the flocking down into the glue with your finger to make sure in adheres.

Here’s another round of pictures to demonstrate the process:

Next I’ll add in some of the gray rock flocking material to represent a different color of river rock. Simply dab some glue over top of the brown rock (leaving areas for the brown to show through) and dip it into the gray flocking. Here’s several tiles that have been flocked with both colors:

Step 4: Grass
Field Grass is available at hobby stores that sell model railroad supplies.

You carefully pull some of it out of the bag trying your best to keep it together as a “clump”.

The basic idea is that you cut off the bottom of the grass so that all of the strands of grass are even and then you glue that into a “blob” of glue. Put the bead of glue on the rocks, not on the grass. Remember that the glue will dry clear so you want enough of a bead that when it dries, it will hold the grass.

Here’s what it looks like:

Another technique is to fold the grass in half and then snip it in the fold with a pair of scissors. You then have two stands of grass/weeds to glue down.

While the grass dries you’ll have to prop it up so that it does not fall over. The Elmers glue is pretty tacky but it can still let the grass droop or fall over. (As you can see form the photo I personally like to pull out my very old and valuable Frank Frazetta books to prop up this gluey mess with.)

The last step with the grass is to trim it so it’s not so tall. Try to do this randomly and at different angles. You don’t want the grass to look unnatural or like it’s been cut off.

Step 5: Boulders
Next you test fit some of the gravel onto the tiles until you find a place where a boulder might look good and fit well. Another large blob of glue and your set. Try to vary where you place these rocks. Too many placed in the same spot on all of your tiles will not look good.

Step 6:
Water Ripples
The last step is to use a small brush and to place thin lines of white paint around the edges of the shore line. Study pictures that show the way water ripples around rocks. Once you’ve painted this on and it is dry you can easily scrape some of the paint back off with the end of your paint brush to correct any mistakes or to break it up.

Step 7: Sealing
The last step is to lightly seal everything. The only spray varnish that I have found to work is Testors #1260 - Dullcote. And even then you don’t want to spray it on too thick and you don’t want too much of it on the sides of your tiles. I generally lock all of my tiles together in one flat spread and spray the varnish on in a wide side to side motion.

One problem is that the varnish will dull down the water. My solution was to take a clean cloth after I sprayed it and wiped it off of the water part of the tile. It got a little dull toward to edges of the rocks but that sort of made it look like shallow water so I didn’t mind.

That’s it. Next I’ll probably talk about modeling better looking trees and rocks. If anyone has any modeling tips they’ve tried with these tiles I would like to hear from you. Hope you find this useful!

_________________________________________________
Here are some shots of my finished water tiles in play: (From a multiplayer Melee/Wizards game, all figures are from my collection and most are old GamesWorkshop figures.)

The party, while traveling on an ancient forest road happens across a small lake.

The dwarf, even though everyone else advises against it, has to investigate.

As he moves around the lake he disturbs the resting place of a water troll sleeping in the nearby rocks.

The troll charges and the battle is joined....

The dwarf is upset because he can’t get into the battle. He dares not jump in the lake because it’s too deep.

The wizard ends the fight by throwing a fireball at the troll. (Which is what you have to do of course with trolls. Sorry, I couldn’t resist throwing in a fireball in Photoshop...)

As the party looks at the smoking remains of the troll the dwarf asks if anyone thinks he might have had any treasure lying around.... You gotta love those dwarves huh?

To be continued. Next up: Trees

 

[SlikkRikk]

Again, this is just incredible. I have to ask how much time it took to complete everything you have done. It seems like it would take me a month of constant work.

If I had a million bucks, you'd be my first employee.

 

[Grishnakh]

If it weren't for the fact that you need to be more careful storeing flocked tiles, I would soooo do this to my sets. (okay, lazyness is an even bigger obsticale for me....)

If you just store them stacked together flat in a large box and if they are properly sealed they do quite nicely.

There had been some disscussion back on HQ about my larger rock tile hexes warping very, very slightly. As it turns out I stored all my tiles stacked together flat for a month or so and now my hex tiles lay flat with no warping at all.

I can't help you with the lazyness obsticale, sorry. You'll have to work that one out yourself.

Again, this is just incredible. I have to ask how much time it took to complete everything you have done. It seems like it would take me a month of constant work.

If I had a million bucks, you'd be my first employee.

Thanks, I'm glad you and everyone has enjoyed seeing them. As for time, well, it does take a little while. The trick is to do them in an assembly line fashion. Once you get up to speed with it they start going pretty fast. I knocked out my master set in a few weeks working at nights after my kids were in bed. The first (mental) hurdle is to finish a complete master set. After that I've just done some extra tiles whenever I get the chance to add to my growing collection. Doing the scenery (tress, rocks, etc.) is a lot of fun as you do not have to be so precise with it.

 

[Grishnakh]

Grishnakh’s Customized Terrain - more photographs of my custom tiles in play.

I thought some of you would like to see what a complete master set would look like in play so I set up a hypothetical battle and took some shots. And this time around I actually used Heroscape figures in my pictures!

Ah, the Romans out on patrol.....

....little do they know but they are about to be ambushed by a squad of Orcs.

The Orcs charge!

The Romans counter charge!

As the romans are beaten back by the Orcs reinforcements arrive across the lake....

But the orcs have another ally who flies in.....
(Note that the base on Charos has been painted and flocked to match my hex tiles.)

The Roman reinforcements are cut of from helping their friends....

Even more Orcs charge into the fray....

The Orc archers take the high ground and pelt the Romans with blackened arrows....

Various views of the chaos....

.... still more to come.

 

[LilNewbie]

Great pics and the scenery looks awesome! What material are you using for the Hex bases for trees and statues?

Newb.

 

[Fallen Templar]

I acn't believe i missed this thread on HQ Grishnakh this Terrain is amazing

 

[Grishnakh]

Great pics and the scenery looks awesome! What material are you using for the Hex bases for trees and statues?

Thanks LilNewbie. I'll talk about it at some length in my next installment would I should have ready by the end of next week.

 

[reapersaurus]

This is truly an amazing effort - elevating Heroscape into an art form, really.

I would think that terrain that evocative of grass, hills, streams, etc would just BEG for more terrain rules than are currently in HS (meaning that the terrain is so beautiful, it would seem strange that no different rules come into play when a fig steps from grass to sand to rock, for instance).

Fantastic work, Grish!

This kind of effort should be displayed at whatever Convention you could get to. NY has to have Conventions that could use your Set as an example of what people can do with HS components....

 

[SlikkRikk]

I wonder if gaming tables will start to be built to this level now. With hexes ingrained into the table to eliminate the need to measure, etc.

 

[truth]

Hey everybody, I made a .pdf out of Grishnakh's first set of instructions and made it available at the bottom of the article on the front page. This should make it easy to print out and have with you for refrence as you work on the project.

 

[K/H_Addict]

HOLY HELL! That looks so freakin realistic! How long does it take you to do that per hex? (sorry if that was answered; i looked at the pics, not the words...i have no where near enough patience to do that.....)

 

[SlikkRikk]

Thank you truth.

 

[Rhetoric]

I am honestly blown away by what you've done here Grishnakh. Everything is gorgeous. I envy the patience you and others like you must have to work on this.

I love the idea of doing this but am also realistic. I do not have the ability to sit down and do it. I lack the patience and the motivation to keep at it day after day.

I would be thrilled if I could make something look half as good in a fraction of the time. You have obviously done a lot of research to develop your method of customization.

Can you recommend a method of painting hexes for those of us that are much less patient but still would like to improve the look of our terrain? I know it won't be close to yours, but even a small improvement would make some of us ecstatic.

I'm thinking I could handle spray painting everything for an hour for instance. What would you recommend for the less gifted?

Thanks!