Strange New Worlds – a TerrainFest of alien forestry

This is the stage where things start to look messy. Hopefully before they become awesome again.

I’ve added some polyfilla to alter the height of the bases in some places and make more uneven ground.

After that I’ve taken a mix of dried elderflower and mixed herbs and glued it all over the bases with a generous amount of slightly thinned PVA.

At this stage they look messy – but smell amazing!

I ordered these aquarium plants on Temu. I have mixed feelings about these sites, but I figured for cheap and cheerful and placing a low-value order that I’d give it a go.

I’m planning on breaking these apart to use as smaller ground cover and suchlike. Let’s see what they are like when they arrive!

I’ve glued the main elements down now, and started gooping some texture down. This is caulk being used with a caulk gun – which is far too unwieldy for this kind of job. So I’ve paused on that for now.

Just going to let the glue and caulk there dry and then go over more carefully with some polyfilla using a small spreader and a damp brush.

Last quick update for today, some more materials I’ve collected for this project.

I’ve had these Magnolia seed pods in my garage for a couple of years now. They look exactly like weird alien trees. So they’re definitely going into the project!

I need to do something to add other non-plant elements to these pieces.

A trip to one of our local beaches turned up these fascinating pebbles with hardened worm casts. I cleaned them by soaking in boiling water and bleach to kill any bacteria. These will make really interesting alien style rocks, and I may collect more.

I cut the pieces out with a jigsaw, which i did not enjoy. I don’t know what it is about a jigsaw but it’s my least favourite power tool and is always so much harder to use than I expect it to be.

Once cut, I then bevelled off the edges with a rasp (? That really scrapy big file) and then sanded. The look amazing already and I am super-pleased.

Oh, and I’ve got the rough side up to glue the textures and pieces to, so the smooth underside will be placed onto gaming mats.

I’m keeping the structures as modular as possible with the magnets, but I don’t want to be farting about with 30 seperate pieces every time I set up a table. So, I’m going to arrange them into nice textured and detailed basing groups.

I picked up a small sheet of 3mm hardboard from B&Q. This is 81x40cm and so plenty big enough for what I need.

I arranged the base parts into pleasing groups, aiming for odd numbers on most of them. Then I drew round them with a sharpie, and adjusted a bit here and there.

With that done, I’ll cut these shapes out and start bevelling them before adding texture, rocks, height and all kind of lovely details.