Styrofoam Terrain

[Warlord Zepnick]

Happy Memorial Day Weekend all!

My friends and I are new to AoS.

I am interested in helping out by building some terrain.

Could anyone point me in the direction of any good guides that are cost effective and show you how to make specific movable terrain?

Thanks in advance!

[Routasydän]

Check theterraintutor in youtube, theres guides and he shows off all kinds of material real nicely

[Lysandestolpe]

I build a ****** ton of durable terrain for my local game stores. This is my process:

1: MDF for base! It's durable, cheap and easy to cut with a band saw.

2. Get a bunch of cheap blades, the styrofoam will cause them to get blunt quickly.

3. make an X mark on the back of the MDF board with paint to prevent small warping over time.

4. Cut you styrofoam shape, glue the forms to each other and to the MDF board. Let dry.

5. use a brush and cover the whole thing in glue and sand the whole thing. It will create a cement like barrier.

6. Paint the shape with non-deluded acrylic paint. The plastic vehicle of the paint will seal the sand from pealing off. After which you can drybrush and do different color etc etc. 

 

I hope that helps.

[Marc Wilson]

On 2017-5-30 at 11:34 PM, Lysandestolpe said:

I build a ****** ton of durable terrain for my local game stores. This is my process:

1: MDF for base! It's durable, cheap and easy to cut with a band saw.

2. Get a bunch of cheap blades, the styrofoam will cause them to get blunt quickly.

3. make an X mark on the back of the MDF board with paint to prevent small warping over time.

4. Cut you styrofoam shape, glue the forms to each other and to the MDF board. Let dry.

5. use a brush and cover the whole thing in glue and sand the whole thing. It will create a cement like barrier.

6. Paint the shape with non-deluded acrylic paint. The plastic vehicle of the paint will seal the sand from pealing off. After which you can drybrush and do different color etc etc. 

 

I hope that helps.

Hi there - could you please expand on step 3? I usually seal my mdf with ... mdf sealent so I am intrigued.

[Lysandestolpe]

I mean, whatever works best for you. @Marc Wilson. This is just an old artist trick so if you have something else that works, go for it!

[Marc Wilson]

7 hours ago, Lysandestolpe said:

I mean, whatever works best for you. @Marc Wilson. This is just an old artist trick so if you have something else that works, go for it!

I just meant what is paint an X doing to stop warping - I don't get it

[Lysandestolpe]

5 hours ago, Marc Wilson said:

I just meant what is paint an X doing to stop warping - I don't get it

When acrylic paint dries, it contracts. When the wood piece is large enough, the paint will make the sheet warp. By placing an X on the back with acrylic paint, it prevents the wood from warping when the paint contracts through its drying process. The X basically covers the area without covering the whole MDF plate. The contraction is basically why using acrylic paint is great to paint over sand, as it contracts and creates a fantastically hard surface easily and cheap.

This technique doesn't work on larger sheets of MDF, only on smaller size (10-12" max) is my recommendation.

[Marc Wilson]

Thanks for the explanation