Yet Another Hill

 I got a cheap 30-watt foam-cutting hot wand from China a few days ago, and tried it out by carving up a foam off-cut into another hill.

The metal wand — the bit that heats up — is about 200mm long, and is somewhat flexible. It works OK, though it doesn't really get quite hot enough to cut easily through the insulation foam I use. I haven't tried it out on expanded polystyrene foam, which it's probably intended for — that stuff is even more temperature-sensitive.

It was a lot easier and less messy to sculpt the 50mm foam sheet into a layered hill suitable for little army men to stand about on than it was to do the same thing with a knife. The stuff I use is designed not to poison everybody in the vicinity in the event of a fire, so the fumes aren't much of a problem.

It's not a precision tool though. I wouldn't want to try using it to cut up foam into regular geometric shapes, but for semi-random hack-and-slash work it's fine.

I tried out using 5-minute epoxy mixed with acetone as water-effects resin to create a boggy area at the base of the hill, in behind some boulders and bushes. It wasn't particularly successful, but I think I know how to improve the end result another time, and I'll give it another go.

The boulders are pieces of pine bark that I nicked from a local playground some years ago. The bark is quite a dark brown in its natural state; I've just given them a couple of layers of dry-brushing to finish them off. I like using it for rocks; the texture is reasonably convincing, and it's much lighter than actual rocks.

A couple of days later...

I've re-done the water in the boggy patch, and it's a considerable improvement over my first attempt. This time, in addition to the 5-minute epoxy, I used a tiny drop of sepia ink to colour the "water" and a lot less acetone that before. Being more viscous than the first lot, I had to tease each blob out around its perimeter to blend it into the surrounding groundwork. It does create something more of a meniscus than with the very liquid first mix, but it's more controllable overall and creates deeper pools, which gives me some nice tonal variations.

Mount Anthracite – finished (probably)

Photos may be clicked upon to embiggenate.

Now I've finished flocking Mount Anthracite, and photographed it out in my rather overgrown back yard. The 15mm T-28 is from Battlefront, and is included for scale.

I called it Mount Anthracite because when I first sprayed it all black, it looked just like a pile of coal. It's a bit less anthracitic now, but I'll keep the name nonetheless.

I may or may not add some more vegetation to it, depending on my whim. It's quite usable just as it is. There are basically three levels of spaces for figures to stand on, though in many places those grassy ledges are too narrow to support anything bigger than 6mm.

Mount Anthracite

The length of the piece is roughly 800 – 900 mm.

 Moving on to a somewhat different style of hill now; this one is supposed to be a jagged rocky ridgeline rather than the smoothly eroded grassy hills I've done before. There will be patches of grassy flock here and there, but it won't be nearly as all-covering as before — there will be almost none on the tops, for example.

Rather than being carved and torched to smooth off the foam, this one has been shaped by stabbing into it and breaking lumps off. The rubble and boulders around the base are some of these chips, stuck in place with acrylic caulk. That leaves quite a decent faceted rocky look, which I then over-painted with texture paste and sprayed solid black.

This is the first of three layers of dry-brushing. The first, darkest tone covers most of the surface, but leaves some of the black showing through. I want a dark, rugged look to the finished piece.

The second and third layers are progressively lighter tones of the first, with the third (and top) layer being almost — but not quite — white. Each layer is applied more lightly, with the last just outlining facets of the rocky structure.

This shot from above shows up the layers of the construction, highlighted by the dry-brushing. There are quite a few places where figures can be stood, but there are many more places where they cannot — this is intended to be mostly impassable terrain, and even for infantry I'd deem it too dangerous for any without alpine training.

Ziggurat Hill

The figures are 15mm WW1 British infantry by Peter Pig
The Burford-Kegresse MG Carrier is a 3d-print, designed by me and made by Shapeways.

 I've tried to make this hill as playable as possible without being too absolutely geometrically regular. It's not terribly naturalistic, but it does look something like some ancient fortification sites I've seen. It's a series of terraces or ledges, so individual unsupported 15mm figures will stand all over it without too may issues.

Finding a happy medium between naturalism and usability has been rather difficult. This is my best effort yet in that regard, but I think it could be better — the continuous runs of the ledges tend to draw the eye, and maybe a less regular scattering of horizontals might do the same job without looking so obviously artificial.

The bottom ledge runs right the way around, while the others all extend only around three sides.

On this side I've attempted a rock face, but it's not very convincing — it looks more like dirt. I have distant memories from childhood of setting plaster on scrunched-up tin foil to make a rocky texture, and as I recall it didn't look too bad, so I may give that another go.

Hills — the search for perfection continues

I've started another couple of hills, with the lessons of the first lot in mind.

In the foreground is a long (about 800–900mm) rocky ridge. It's got a bunch of flat spaces and ledges in amongst the general rockiness, as it's supposed to be impassable to vehicles, but climbable by foot troops with appropriate climbing skills.

The top half is slathered with my texture paint, which I've now remembered to actually add paint to. It's a mix of acrylic filler, paint and sand, painted and dabbed on to the foam, and it fills small seams and leaves a good ground texture. It's only on the top half at the moment, because I've just added a whole lot of clutter and rubble around the foot of the hill, and the acrylic caulk I'm using as glue (Selleys No More Gaps) isn't set yet.

I tried gluing sections of this one with construction glue (Selleys No More Nails), and though it creates a very strong bond when it eventually sets, it takes a looooooong time to set. Especially between layers of foam; it's not really ideal for use in that sort of environment I think. There are probably more specialised adhesives that would work better, but the acrylic caulk does a good enough job for my purposes, and is a lot cheaper.

The thing in the background that looks like a plate full of tofu slabs is a stepped ziggurat-style hill in its early stages of construction. When the caulk on that is set, I'll start carving and chipping it into more rounded hill shapes. It's going to be a lot less naturalistic-looking than any that I've done as yet, as it's supposed to be climbable all round, so it needs to be stepped all round so that figures can stand on it.

Again, With the Hills

Figures are 15mm WW1 British 18pdr and crew from Peter Pig.
The tank is my own 3d-printed A1E1 Independent.
Background is a hideous fluorescent GW "grass" mat.

I've put together another couple of experimental hills. Number 1 we've seen before.

Hill #2 has a mix of steep, impassable faces and more-or-less flat terraces that a figure could stand on without immediately tumbling down. It's a bit more usable than Hill #1, while still remaining reasonably naturalistic, but to be truly playable it probably needs to be blockier still. Apart from the flock, vegetation is pretty minimal — just a few areas of clump-foliage — and I think I may add a bit more to make it look a bit less... spotty. I may also have to hit it with the airbrush, as the flock looks a bit more pallid than I'd hoped, but I'll give it another couple of days before I do that as it may just be that the PVA holding everything together isn't properly cured yet so it's still a bit white. We've been having some cool, wet weather lately, and that has really slowed things down.

Hill #3 is a two-peak hill; the upper one is steep, with a flat top to allow figures to stand, while the bottom one is much more gently sloped. The slope is still too much for single figures, but vehicles and figures in movement trays will rest there without sliding back down. There's no foliage on here at all except for the flock, which is fine.

They're all sitting on a GW "grass" mat that I picked up cheap some years ago, and have never used because it looks nothing at all like grass. I live in a Land of Grass, and I've never seen grass that looks anything like that colour. Add to that the fact that it sheds worse than a cat in moult, and it's just bloody awful.