Draconis Does….. TerrainFest 2024

19th December 2024

Slow again, but I have got some positive progress over the week.

When I left off I was debating what type of bridge to make. In the end I chose to go with a curved bridge, made from foamcard.

I sketched out the shape on some scrap paper, then used a pin to transfer the shape to the foamcard. This was then cut out using a fresh blade in my craft knife. The roadway was made from a flat piece of foamcard that I cut a series of score marks into, to allow it to be bent to the required curve (I plan to cover this with textured plasticard).

I then used panel pins and glue to secure the roadway to the two sides, following the curve I had decided upon.

It was looking a bit plain, so I used some old card from the back of a notepad to make tiles/stones for the hand rail areas and for the bottom of the arch. Plus a few random larger stones on the sides. Not great, but helps.

Then it was onto the painting…. Forgot some pics here though. So, for the river sections I tried using some masonry paint to add some texture, and fill some of the more porous areas. This didn’t go super well tbh, but I recovered from it. They were then sprayed black, followed by a mix of brown and green. The bridge was sprayed black followed by a misting of grey.

For the water area I wanted to avoid any strong bright blue, as water is not blue in rivers. I mixed up some old foundation paints, Orkhide shade with a touch of Necron Abyss. This was painted onto the water areas, with different mixes and brushed along the flow direction.

IRL it does look more green then the pictures seem to indicate. Then I painted the banks in an earthy brown, and brushed this along the edges and for the ford area. Followed up with Agrellan earth as well to feather the edges out. Finally they have had the first stage of flock laid down. Lots to go, but it has started to move long again now.

13th December 2024

Well, its been a bit of time, so I thought that I should post an update. I haven’t had much time for hobby of late unfortunately though, so there isn’t much.

For the section of river, bridge and ford I had 3’ of the thin fibre/mdf board left, so sketched out three river sections onto that. One had the ford, one space for the bridge and one just plain.

I cut these out, and used the curvy edges as a template to mark out the banks onto some old foamcard I was reusing.

This was then glued down onto the base board, and trimmed down roughly.

Not sure what style of bridge to make, so I sketched out a couple of choices. One would be a wooden bridge, using balsa and coffee stirrer sticks. The other would be using foamcard. Also, a lot of tidying up to do…..

5th December 2024

Next up it was the campfire area. I found these bits from Mantic Terrain Crate among my collection, so they got a clean up, then a spray.

Didn’t get many pictures here as I was working on these between other things. One tent was painted with rawhide, the other ivory. Both were given a thinned agrax wash followed by drybrushing (up to pale sand for the rawhide and white for the ivory.

They both looked too clean at this stage (the pale one in particular) so I gave them both a neat wash of Agrax over the bottom edges, feathering in part way up. This seems to have helped out the look.

The sleeping bags were painted with contrast paints, with rawhide and ivory used for the mattress part. Thinned agrax wash again, followed by a pale sand drybrush. The woodpile was Wyldwood contrast, with ivory for the cut areas, and again agrax wash.

I spent a bit more time on the fire and fire base. Using washes and drybrushes of blacks and greys, followed by Deneb stone lightly I tried to give the stone surround a look of soot covering.

The bags and bedrolls were painted in the same way, a mix of contrast and regular. The lantern glass was given a gloss varnish.

And here they all are:

2nd December 2024

Another quick one. These gravestones are for use as the clue markers in the second scenario, and for potential scatter in others.

I couldn’t find any gravestones to hand, but a friend gave me some spares he had. They were primed black, grey, white quite some time back…..

When going to paint them I realised that I need to differentiate them a bit. As such, I got out the sanding tool again and ground down the skull on four of them.

These were then repainted by hand, using rubber black followed by several stages of drybrushing with greys, whites or Deneb stone. They all finish roughly the same though 😊

This was followed by applying some mixed flock and static grass to the edges of the bottom, and then gluing them down to some small squares of clear plastic cut from old blister packs.

Finally I painted some marking on to each of them, some with legible words and dates, others with just scribbles. I think they will do the job.

Haven’t had one for a while, now two at once………duplicate due to system error, please ignore

Gravestones duplicate due to system error, please ignore

Just some pics of the chapel with the altar and pews inside.

I will keep these all separate so that I can move them around, have more or less in etc. I will likely set them up ‘strewn about’ rather than orderly, but have taken pics of both set ups.

I may still add a few other things in the future, but not sure yet.

30th November 2024

Having finished off the chapel basing and altar through the week today I worked on the pews.

I had previously made a test piece from some offcuts of firm balsa wood for the sides and back, coffee stirrer for seat and matchstick for the support on the back.

So, for the rest I took the measurements of the test piece and measured out what I needed from some more balsa.

In order to keep things relatively straight while the contact adhesive set I used the test piece to make a temporary ‘jig’ from blu tac, that I could use to align the new ones.

With them all set I then used my sanding bit on my rotary tool to carve in the curves on the side pieces.

Then I sprayed them all black, followed by a misting of brown (in part due to the spray playing up 😊 ). They then had a drybrushing of pale sand to weather them a touch.

30th November 2024

Quick one – One of the things that I worked on was an altar for the chapel.

It is from Reaper Bones first KS.

I painted it grey, washed it with Agrax.

Then I painted the top as white marble. This was white, and then three different shades of quite light grey painted in vein like pattern across the top and down the sides. Then I gave it a gloss varnish, and picked out the skulls with black followed by runelord brass.

As you can see though, even after treating with hot water followed by cold, the warp to the material has partly come back ☹

30th November 2024

I first weathered up the scratch build wall sections, so they would better match the other pieces.

Then it was down to laying down the basic flock, followed by the two other flocks (a brighter green, and a green/brown).

This was followed by adding clump foliage ( three types) to match other basing.

I also found that the ruined areas were a touch too ‘clean’. So I cut up some mdf to make some fallen blocks. These were weathered to blend as well.

Then finally I added some sprinkles of the dried parsley as general detritus.

Next up will be some furniture for the inside.

24th November 2024

In order to fill in the bare sections of foundation area I did debate just putting some sand and gravel down. Then I opted to make low sections of walls, trying to match the existing pieces. I did also have two plastic rubble type sections to use.

For the scratch building I used foamcard, coffee stirrers and cardboard. I measured the existing wall features and tried to replicate them as best I could with what I had available. My intention being to cover any areas that didn’t match well with foliage, rubble etc to mask it.

Didn’t take enough pics, but some of them came out pretty well 😊

After shaping the new wall sections to make them look ruined I sprayed these up in the same way as the plastic wall pieces, then glued them into place.

I think that once I add the weathering to match the plastic walls then they should blend in well.

24th November 2024

For the ruined chapel I had some corner pieces of GW ruined gothic terrain that I planned to repurpose. I sketched up a rough layout, bearing in mind that the suggested size was 6” x 6”.

Additionally I found some images of medieval tiles online, duplicated them enough times so that they would cover the floor area and printed them out.

Before spraying I also cut some sections off one of the pieces, so that I could fill in the gaps in the walls a bit more.

Then it was onto spraying. I sprayed them black, then grey from above… and they ended up looking similar to bare plastic 😊

I followed this up with a drybrush of Deneb stone, which did help. On the inside I drybrushed it heavily with Praxeti White. I wasn’t happy with this though, so painted over with Vallejo Pale sand, which gives a better look.

Next up it was some weathering, and gluing the pieces down.

However, the wall lines still looked too sparse, so I started to try to scratch build some wall pieces to fill the spaces. First up it was the bases of the corner pillars.

23rd November 2024

Onto the ‘Underbrush.’

This was put together in very much the same way as the rocks. The main exception being that I used lichen product as the underbrush 😊

So, it was:

Create a test piece.

Cut out bases

Glue on any rocks (for one I did try to add some height by adding a second layer of mdf in places)

Paint it brown

Add flock.

Add different flock

Add lichen and clump foliage

Add brown flock

Add parsley

I also painted on some brown areas to represent places where the grass had been worn by animal tracks and such.

Some bits may have gone a little over the top, but relatively pleased overall.

19th November 2024

I have also been working on rocks….

I made a test piece alongside working on trees.

Just some stones from the garden glued onto the mdf. Then based the same way as the trees.

Happy with that result I went out and got some more rocks. This time I also grabbed some larger ones, that could better act as blocking terrain. These were washed, ready to be based up.

I glued these on, trying to keep the positions in a reasonably realistic way, then based them in the manner I have used for the rest so far.

I may make some more in the future. Have to see how much coverage I get once I finish the other pieces I am working on for this.

19th November 2024

Among other things this past week I have rolled out the basing style onto the rest of the trees (armature and GW Spooky).

I cut out further pieces of thin MDF, stuck the trees down and for some of them added some small rocks or a small raised area.

These were then painted brown, had two types of green flock added followed by the brown(ish) flock. Then various small pieces of clump foliage were added, and some lichen.

At this point I decided to try something a little extra. I had some old parsley that had dried out. So I added some PVA to the base and then sprinkled on the parsley. I think it works 😊

For some of the spooky trees I also added some ‘flower’ tufts for a bit of extra decoration.

They all still need the watered down pva coating, but here they are :

15th November 2024

This past week I also worked on basing and finishing a test tree, to see what I want to roll out for the rest. I cut up some thin mdf off cuts using a stanley knife, stuck the tree on, and painted it in an earthy brown.

Then I needed to decide on what flock to try. I have a variety of flocks and static grass, so rolled out the gaming mat I plan to use and then laid out the bags and tubs on that.

I chose a pale flock as the main colour, and planned to use a brighter green in places, and a green brown in other patches. Then I would add pieces of clump foliage etc for added decoration.

Finally I mixed up a watered down PVA and used a spray bottle to spray the whole tree….. this stage will need to be worked on, due to the nature of the spray pattern – but overall it finally got a full covering.

So, alongside the thin armature trees I planned to use some of my old GW ‘spooky’ trees.

They are much thicker than the armature ones, but I am hoping that using the same clump foliage (rather than the flat plastic leaves) on them will tie them all together.

After filling some of the larger gaps with milliput they were given the same black followed by brown overspray, and a drybrush of Deneb Stone. They also had a thinned wash of ‘strong tone’.

Then I picked out the stones on the base (Deneb stone again) and started with the clump foliage. I had purchased some contact glue, but did go back to my almost set super glue, to make stringy connections between branches.

When finished they sort of look like Bonsai trees 😊

11th November 2024

Having carried out the test of the armature and clump foliage, one of the things I wanted to do was have some taller trees. As the basic armature is only 3” height.

I did debate just buying larger armatures, but I am still in the mind set of trying to make use of what I have already.

Searching around I found some wooden skewers. These were close in diameter to the base of the tree armatures. I cut one down then drilled a hole into each end. The armature piece pushed into the top hole, and for the bottom I used a piece of paper clip as a pin.

This gave it some good height, so I did the same for 5 other trees, using different lengths of wooden skewer for each.

Next up I mixed up some milliput for covering the skewers. This was to strengthen the connection at the bottom as well as to give it a more natural look.

At this stage I also made some rough stumps of side branches up the trunk, to give some more visual interest and to look like limbs that had been cut off. This was rolled out to all the trees.

Then I sprayed them black, followed by brown. The result at that point was too brown, so I then went in and drybrushed them over with Deneb Stone (an old foundation paint). This did improve the appearance I feel.

Finally it was the time consuming part of adding the clump foliage to them all 😊

8th November 2024

I have had a bag of Woodland Scenics small tree armatures for probably two decades now, unopened. So, I knew that I wanted to actually try to use some of them for this terrain project.

Went for one of the largest of them. Cleaned up the sprue gates and stuck it onto its base. Then I bent the various branches into a rough tree shape.

Next up it was applying the Woodland Scenics Clump Foliage (that has also sat here for years). I dug out some old superglue that had gone too thick, and using a plastic rod I wrapped threads of it around the various branches. Then I applied clumps to the glue.

The finished result looks ok.

However, there are some things I will look to change or add.

1 – Paint the armature before adding the clump foliage.

2 – Get a more suitable glue

3 – Make some larger trees somehow

4 – Consider dusting over with some slightly different coloured flock

5 – Spray the whole thing with watered down PVA to seal it.

To begin with I focused just on the first book, and checked what terrain I needed for the four cooperative scenarios there.

It consists of:

Trees, rocks, underbrush, a campfire, a ruined chapel (approx. 6” x 6”), a bridge, a river, some boggy pools, some hills.

I don’t have a lot of generic fantasy terrain currently, but I do have some basic trees and hills. However, I know that I will need some more trees – so that will be my first focus.