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I am going to start making terrains. I have listened to DM's Craft on YouTube and really like what he was showing. I do not want to use cardboard though. I would like to use very sturdy materials. Money is not an issue. Obviously not steel but some sort of wood I assume?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
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If money is not an issue check out molds at Hirst Arts. If you have a skill saw or something you can glue the tiles down to hardboard. Also, you can buy your own silicone molding material to make molds of Hirst Arts projects that you will need multiples of (floors, walls, etc...).
If you go the Hirst Arts route, I recommend the Field stone, Cavern, and Gothic lines (in that order). If you want more info on which particular molds I think are best just let me know. Check out their forums for tips.
Yar!
If cost is no issue, you should investigate model train terrain building. There are numerous how tos on youtube, and it is high detail with strong materials.
Often it will include a rough wood frame, with carved foam for large areas, wood supports with plaster paper for rocky formations, sometimes completely out of foam or other materials, and so forth.
If you want more dungeon terrain bits, plaster casting would be the way to go. Hirst Arts provides molds and instructions on how to do all of that (see Asphere's post for a link).
Happy building! :D
~P
There are literally hundreds of youtube videos detailing a wide variety of terrain making techniques using a fairly wide variety of materials. A quick list:
1. Styrene, styrofoam, packing foam, etc. Most of these are some form of styrene. It is best usually to use the extruded foam instead of styrofoam made from pellets that are melted together. Most serious terrain builders by large sheets up to 2" thick from building supply stores. These are typically cut with saws and hot wires.
2. Clays, particularly poly clays. This is more for smaller detailed work than the styrene which is best for large elements. Poly clay is sold as "Sculpey" or "Fimo" in most hobby shops. The stuff is awesome.
3. Plasters, particularly hard specialty plasters such as dental plaster (I use "Hydrostone"). This as awesome stuff and most folks use it to cast blocks from molds like those sold at Hirst Arts, but you can cast anything of up to almost any size. Compared to styrene this weighs a ton, and you do have to be gentle with it. The level of detail possible is amazing though.
4. Foam core or cardboard. I use this a lot for making thin walls or constructing buildings quickly. You can get pretty creative. I make wooden slat huts by slicing one side of foam core into parallel strips which I can then paint as boards.
5. Papier mache (sp?). This isn't very sturdy but it is fast, easy and cheap. You can make a huge chunk of terrain in a few hours. This is really good for diorama style terrain, meaning it can be background terrain that you don't subject to a lot of actual play.
And, of course, there are commercially available terrain as well.
I recommend that you start with small chunks of styrene that you salvage from boxes used for shipping. You can do a lot of nice terrain with the typical packing styrene. In fact many people find the strange geometric shapes of the packing styrene to be extremely interesting as it is, especially for things like warehouses, industrial complexes, spaceports, etc.
Just go watch some videos, grab some paints and sealer and knock yourself out.
This is entirely my opinion and if an experienced terrain maker disagrees, by all means...
Irranshalee, for ground terrain, I would stick to cardboard and foam--it is lightweight and easy to shape, and that it has some "give" makes it ideal for terrain crafting. Harder materials might be attractive for sturdiness but they are harder to work with, heavy to transport, harder to store, and often look less organic. Part of crafting terrain is it's more ideal to work with the cheaper materials because it's better to just be able to make a new set when the old one wears out than try to maintain it. Even stuff based in wood is going to get chipped off and such. Now of course if you all want to put it on a wood base and then put the foam and cardboard on top, that works.
For buildings and other placeable terrain, I agree with the others that you look at Hirst arts and similar molds, which use dental plaster, quite hard and durable and looks really nice.
Wood and balsa wood is good for certain small terrain pieces, or for things like a wooden floor of course.
I also agree with Pirate, go to a model train store and see what kind of things they sell. Just bear in mind most common model train scales do not mesh with fantasy miniature scale (25/28 mm), so don't buy some of the items that may end up looking weird next to a mini.
Wargames sites (GW, Privateer Press) should have some good tutorials as well, as wargames terrain can get rather fancy.
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I was going to try a thin, maybe 1/4-1/2 inch thick, piece of oak for the base. I know cardboard bends and I really do not want my work to become useless in a minor accident.
As for chipped, I would think it will take many years to chip off, if it even does. A polyurethane coat and it should act like a table for life.
My concern from your post, though, is whether or not it will look more real. Wood has grains which can be affected differently by paints/stains, cardboard is essentially one surface.
Everything else you listed is trivial for me. It will not need to be transported; It may be harder to work with but I have time; etc.
Thank you for your posts. Your responses have been very useful.
* Edit: second to last sentence was meant to say, "It will not need..." It reads correctly now.
By "chipped" I mean I think paint and sand will chip off of a wooden base more easily, because it's harder (although it depends on how you prep it). Not the wood itself. Sorry, I realize that wasn't clear.
Can you further describe what you have in mind? Is this going to be stuff that's permanently affixed to the game table? Or is it small terrain pieces that you put down in different combinations? Or both?
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I plan on writing modules for my use. I will make the tiles that go along with these modules. The game table will be cleared once the session is finished.
The first module that I plan on building is the clearing of a keep. The party will get the keep once it has been cleared. They will need to keep their land cleared of "monsters" and pay for the structure's upkeep, among many other troubles that will cause them to search for monetary resources.
I might use the keep a second or third time for various sieges from other modules I build.
Additionally, I will make generic tiles for woodland areas to help with random encounters I may choose to include from time to time.
I'm not certain what you're trying to make, but I can say that if you're sculpting terrain pieces (ravines, hills, mountains, cliffs), then you are going to want to use pink or blue foam insulation board. It's strong enough to hold shape while able to be worked with reasonable tools.
If you want things on hard bases, look into CD's. They are perfect for perfectly flat, hard surfaces. If you need shapes other than 'round' then you want to use some type of thin hardboard. Stay away from 'real wood', as anything with a grain will split, swell, warp, or otherwise not do what you want. MDF/Chipboard or other formed materials will almost always be superior to real wood.
Depending on how you want your material on the surface to act, you may or may not be able to slap a coat of poly on it. If you want a flocked/grass surface, you will not want to poly it, you'll want to saturate it with watered down PVA and then coat it with a flat sealer.
If you have some ideas of what you're trying to build, and how you envision trying to make it, I'm sure the board can give you some great pointers as well as some pitfalls to look out for.
I plan on writing modules for my use. I will make the tiles that go along with these modules. The game table will be cleared once the session is finished.
The first module that I plan on building is the clearing of a keep. The party will get the keep once it has been cleared. They will need to keep their land cleared of "monsters" and pay for the structure's upkeep, among many other troubles that will cause them to search for monetary resources.
I might use the keep a second or third time for various sieges from other modules I build.
Additionally, I will make generic tiles for woodland areas to help with random encounters I may choose to include from time to time.
If I may offer a suggestion, you should start out with making 4-6 very basic tiles that will fit together on your table. For these tiles, a layer of mdf with a piece of 2" foam insulation on top of it will be ideal. the 4-6 tiles should be able to be laid out on your gaming table in a 2x2 or 2x3 layout.
These tiles should be painted/flocked however you like, but the more basic the better, because these will be your base pieces. Paint the foam, flock it, then, the hard part, grid it after the flocking. Once you have these, you have a game table.
For the keep, if money and time are no object, invest in Hirst Arts Molds, and make the pieces fairly modular. This will allow you to reuse components and build new keeps as you add components... I'd make each room be a separate piece, so you can assemble them as needed. Use 1" floor tiles for everything, and you avoid the need for a grid on these pieces.
Then, once you have a gridded, modular surface, and gridded, modular rooms and halls, you start adding more pieces. You can make hills, mountains and cliffs out of 2" foam and place them as needed. You can get large rocks, statues, trees, and other terrain pieces and add them as needed. Purchase plastic sheeting of brick roads, paths, and other ground effects. Buy model houses that fit the scale.
Then, you can start making custom tiles. This is why you started with 2" foam on the base pieces... you can carve rivers, lakes, ravines, pits, sink holes, beaches, and anything else up to 2" down into the new tiles, and work them into the other tiles to make literally any combination you want.
This is a huge endeavor, but the more modular you make your build at the start, the more use you'll get out of things. The only way I'd ever make 'one-off' pieces at this level would be if I was being compensated for my time and building things for a convention demo game.