Wargame terrain hills, part five

While about to embark on the final stages of my terrain hills, I realized I didn't have enough flock to complete them all, which is why it's taken so long for the next part to be completed. Either way, I eventually received enough flock to continue, so here is the final part of the terrain hill tutorial.

• Mix wood glue with water to make it all milky (1:5 should do it) and cover large parts of the hill in the mixture, leaving patches of painted sand showing to resemble dirt (we're not make a lawn, after all).
  
  
• Cover the mixture in green flock to resemble grass, leave it to dry for a while before blowing the excess flock away. I recommend using at least two different colors of flock to make it look more realistic (since grass is usually a few different shades of green)
  
  
• Once the glue is dry and the flock is stuck to the hill, the project is more or less complete. However, I like to add a few details to make the hills stand out from each other and look less barren. The following stage is entirely optional but can add a lot to the overall appearance of the hill.
  
  
  
• Pick out the largest sand corns on the hill with a few different colors of grey (Codex Grey and Fortress Grey usually look good together) to create the sense of small rocks on the hill. It makes the dirt stand apart from the grass and draws the eye in.
  
  
• Glue a few bits of foliage to sections of the hills in order to create the appearance of bushes and, if you have any to spare, stick a few small trees to one side of the hill. It looks natural and it creates another strategic function in the game if one side of the hill blocks line of sight for artillery.
  
  
• Once you're satisfied with the look of your hill, mix a tiny but of wood glue with plenty of water (at least 1:10) and fill a spray bottle with the mixture. Then spray all the entire hill and leave to dry. This will make the flock sturdy enough on both sides to survive the rigors of gaming longer.
  

That's it! The hills are completed and ready for gaming. Here's how they look on my own gaming table, alongside a few forests, boulders and other pieces of scenery. Yes, I know, I really ought to do something about all those unpainted models.

Wargame terrain hills, part four

I made the mistake of leaving the hills to dry on top of the newspaper, which resulted in two things: the hills stuck to the paper, which in turn stuck to the table underneath due to the glue going through the paper. Thirty minutes of soap water and intense rubbing sorted it out however, and so we were ready for the next part of terrain hill tutorial.

• Mix a brown color like Graveyard Earth* together with water in a 2:1 ratio and paint the entire hill with two layers.
  
  
• Once it has dried up, take a lighter ochre-like color like Bubonic Brown and dip the brush in it. Then dust off the majority of the paint on a towel until the brush gives off a very weak trace of paint.
  
  
• Brush the paint lightly over the hills and notice how only the higher points of sand gets covered, leaving the darker earth color shining through from underneath.
  
  
• Hopefully, this should make it look like dirt on the ground. If you'd like, you can use other colors on top of this basic surface to make sections of stone or other vegetation.
  
  

This is how my hills looked after this stage:


* I use the landscape set by Games Workshop, containing a large pot of dark brown and a smaller one of ochre brown, as well as glue and plenty of flock. It's a quite expensive set but overall a fairly good deal.

Wargame terrain hills, part three

Having just completed the sanding phase of the hill making, I strongly suggest anyone working with large pieces in need of sanding to conduct the process outside, or in the garage if you have one, as the sand goes everywhere. Also, once the glue has dried, make sure not to leave it outside any longer, especially not if you're expecting rain. I did that, but luckily the hills do dry up eventually. Anyway, let's get the third part of the terrain hill tutorial underway.

• Mix wood glue and water in a 3:1 ratio, enough to make it loose and milky, before painting the hill with the mix using the largest brush you can find.
  
  
• Place the hill on newspaper or similar and cover the wet glue in sand. I actually used an oven sheet and sand from the local park. When it comes to larger projects like this, I like to keep things as cheap as possible, so I won't waste model sand on terrain.
  
  
• Once the glue has dried, mix another bash of water and glue but this time in a 1:4 ratio, making the substance all watery. Then treat the hills to a second batch with the brush, although this time paint on top of the sand. If you ignore this stage, it is likely that sand will fall off whenever the hills are used. The watery glue mixture will improve its physical resistance and makes it easier to paint later. Then leave the hills to dry completely.
  

Here's how my hills are looking after this stage:

Wargame terrain hills, part two

Progress blogging is really useful I find, especially when receiving encouragements and comments from others. Since it's not what I enjoy most about the hobby, it's particularly useful to me in order to motivate myself enough to work a little bit on the project each day. Here's the second part of the terrain hill tutorial.

• Once the polystyrene shapes have been glued to the hardboard (and sufficiently dried), use the knife to cut out the slopes on the hills. Start from the bottom, near the hardboard (leave an inch between the board and the cut) then cut all the way to the top, creating a slope.
  
• If you're making a stepped hill, this is when you glue the two parts of polystyrene to each other.
  
• Use the sandpaper to flatten out any uneven surfaces on both the polystyrene cuts and the hardboard. Here you can shape the slopes the way you want them, either as hard climbs or very sloping hills.*
  

This is how my hills looked after the second stage:

* If you want, you can cut out rocks and stony surfaces on the hills instead of flat slopes, and paint them up accordingly later. Since I'm going for a grass and dirt look for my terrain, I won't do much stones on these hills.

Wargame terrain hills, part one

I'll be running a tutorial session for the next couple of posts, mainly to motivate myself to complete the project in front of me but also perhaps to motivate others to embark on similar projects of their own. The hobby project for this week, instead of painting miniatures, is to build some suitable terrain for the gaming table. I haven't done much of that, as it really isn't my favorite part of the hobby, but I still love the look of new terrain pieces, as it adds so much to the atmosphere of the games. I'll be building the hills for my table to begin with, as they're one of the most essential parts of a war-game landscape, for artillery to take aim from and for troops to move around.

For this project, you'll need polystyrene*, hardboard**, wood glue, sand, paint, flock, knife, sandpaper and a marker pen.

• Take the polystyrene and draw the shapes of the hills with the marker pen. For Warhammer Fantasy, you'll want the hills to be quite open with slopes fairly easy to recognize for gaming purposes.
  
  
• Cut out the shapes of polystyrene with the knife and place them on the hardboard, then draw the same hill shapes on the board and cut them out as well.
  
  
• If you'd like a stepped hill, first cut out the highest point of the hill from the polystyrene, then fit that against a larger piece for the lower ground, before drawing out the shape of larger form on the hardboard.
  
  
• Glue the polystyrene shapes onto the hardboard pieces and leave to dry.
  
  

This is how the first stage looked for me:


 * You can find polystyrene in most local hardware stores as well as in the package shipments you'll receive from product companies. For more advanced cutting, you'd want blue or pink Styrofoam since it won't crumble as much. For this project though, as I won't do much delicate cutting, I'm using cheap white polystyrene.

** Some people prefer to use thincard instead of hardboard because it's so much easier to cut out the shapes from. However, it's more prone to warping and it makes the entire structure less sturdy. I prefer to use hardwood for that reason, even though it takes much longer to cut.