Something of a Maze

I’ve made some progress while I had some time to myself.

I used a fine green flock to add some texture and variation to the moss growth over the board.  it was just a case of dabbing on bits of Mod Podge and sprinkling the flock on.  It’s quite a vibrant green, but I really like it and feel it adds to the overall look.

Once it is dry, I will add some leaf scatter and then seal it all once again.

The rest of the ground covering is well and truly stuck in place, which is great, as the plan is to eliminate any shedding by the end of the build.

This is the current state of play.

I have a whole heap of bushes to add, but I can’t do that until all the groundwork is done, and I can also add some other bits and pieces I have in mind at the same time.

After that, I suppose I should take a closer look at each tile and see what I can add to them on an individual level.

Other than that, I just want to take the opportunity to wish you all an awesome festive period, however you choose to spend it.  Stay safe and look out for each other.

Thanks to everyone who is working during the holidays, and special thanks to all those people who give up so much family time to keep us all safe, you are all very much appreciated.

Whilst waiting for the mud to become 100% dry and hard, I set to the task of coming up with some shrubs and bushes.

My initial thought was that I would use rubberised horsehair as the base structure.  I have used it before to make trees and hedges, and it seemed to work okay.

I started cutting out bits and realised that it was too uniform and didn’t quite capture the look I was going for.

I had some plumber’s hemp left over from when I made the trees for our little Fallout Campaign, and I figured I could use that to knock together some simple, inexpensive shrubs.

I would couple that with some leftover orangish lichen from when I pimped my Jungle Trees for a recent Congo game.

When I initially bought the Lichen I had envisaged using the orangey bits along with some of the redder clump foliages I have for my Mars setting in our Victorian Science Fiction games

Before glueing all the shrubs into place, I may experiment with adding some flocks to them to add an extra layer of texture and colour and will most likely seal them with a fine spray of matt Mod Podge to give them a bit more rigidity and to make sure the bushy part is nice and secure, after all gamers are not the most gentle of beast out there and this has to survive contact with the enemy.

I sprinkled some brown ground covering around the bases of the trees to help hide where they have been glued down to the tiles.

Then I made a mix of Matte Mod Podge, Water and washing up liquid.  Basically about 1 part Mod Podge to 4 Parts water with a few drops of washing up liquid to help break down the surface tension of the mixture.

I then applied the mix with a cheap pipette and allowed it to soak into the mixture before leaving it dry, which takes quite a long time.

Now I must admit this was not 100% successful.

I found that lots of the ground covering moved and was washed out of place as I applied the glue mixture.  In hindsight, I would recommend gently spraying on a mist of isopropanol alcohol to keep everything in place whilst applying the glue and to also aid in further breaking down the surface tension.

I also found that some of the roots actually lifted and had to be glued back down.

It is not too much of an issue, as I have a lot of leaf litter to apply that will help cover any unsightly bits.

The next thing I had to address was the rocks.   At the moment, they are just painted with rattle cans, which is okay for a starting point, but they need more definition, and the blue tinge toned down so that they fit in better with the loose rocks scattered around.

I grabbed a few colours to get rid of the blue.

First, mix a bit of dark, black-brown with some off-white, and randomly dry-brush bits before splodging on bits of a reddish-brown mixed with off-white.

After that, I splodged on a light stippling of reddish brown mixed with black brown, mostly in the bits that I wanted to be more shaded.

Finally, I gave the rocks two very quick dry brushes.  First with off white and then with white.

Next, I mixed up some green wash and applied it pretty liberally over the trees and rocks to simulate moss.   I will come back and cover some of these areas with a fine green flock down the track, but for now, this is providing a nice basecoat for the areas that are mossy.

Moss is an evergreen plant, so it will add a nice contrast when set against the reddish autumn leaves.  The green also helps the fallen statue pieces pop a bit more.

From here, I think my next stage will be to start blending the tree roots into the ground and cleaning up or hiding any exposed hot glue.

At the moment, it feels like the trees are sitting on top of the ground covering rather than being a part of it.  I know that when I get to the final stage of ground cover, this will eliminate a lot of that, but I also don’t want to take the risk of any bits looking unfinished.

I used a mixture of water and PVA in a spray bottle and drenched each terrain board to give some extra holding power to keep the first layer of flock in place.

Whilst it was wet I sprinkled some dark brown fine gravel over the pieces in an ad-hoc manner.  I wanted to break up the uniformity a little and start to make the groundwork look a bit more damp.

Once that was dry, I used a hot glue gun to attach the trees.  I made sure that no tree extended past the boundaries of the tile it was placed on.  I have purposely left several tiles without trees.  This is so that I can crate clearings if I wish and also leave space should I wish to add a cabin of some sort at any point.

I am quite enjoying the modularity of the tiles at the moment, and don’t think I have managed to set them up the same twice so far, and I can make the board smaller for tighter games if I choose.

I think once more of the ground cover is done, they will start to blend in more and more with each other.

Finally finished off the first layer of ground cover.

Once this is all set nice and firm, I can go about attaching the trees, then move on to actually making each tile look a lot less uniform.

So, this is the current state of play.  I have just placed the tiles down and have not actually clipped anything together.   They look a little uneven in the pictures because there are a few loose rocks on the table, so they are not all lying nice and flat as they will at the end.

I have tried to keep some open spaces because, as nice as it would be to have a full forest, it would be a nightmare to manoeuvre figures around.  I guess I have aimed for a happy medium.

I think when I start adding some of the plant life, it will fill the gap between the treetops and rocks a bit.  At the moment, it looks like it needs some very low-level elements and some mid-range to help create the illusion of density.

This morning, I set about painting the marble features of this setup.

It was just an excuse to add another texture and a set of colours to the build, and to create a few feature tiles.

These are the only 3D printed parts for this build.   I printed them out on one of my Creality K1 Max filament printers using my usual PLA+

Obviously, I have a fair amount of the darker colour showing on mine.  If you take the baby wipe off and find it too dark for your liking, you can simply add another layer of baby wipe and go over it again with off-white and then white.  This will turn some of the current darker lines into very pale grey lines, which also creates a nice effect.

Took the time to start placing out some trees to get an idea of how things are starting to look.   I will cover more on the trees soon.