Making Terrain Boards Part 5: Dirt and Stone

Yet another in my ongoing terrain board construction series. In this session I add some dirt and stone and the terrain boards begin to take on something resembling their final state. Join me after the jump for the details.


If you want to check out any other steps in the process, see them here:

• Terrain Boards Part 1: Planning
• Terrain Boards Part 2: Base and Edges
• Terrain Boards Part 3: Cutting the River
• Terrain Boards Part 4: Building Hills

I'd finished up the major terrain features of the boards and got to tackle the fined details of surface dirt, stones and pathways. I used spackle to coat and smooth any outstanding remaining pink foam. I roughed in some pathways and a "town center", and added small divots and wheel tracks to make them well traveled.

I gave areas outside of the roadways a coat of 50:50 water/white glue mix and spread fine sand over them. Once the glue dried I removed the excess sand and used the palm of my hand and sand paper to take out any larger pebbles so all that was left was a find grit coat of sand.

I painted the entire surface with some Home Depot paint samples to seal the sand, and spray painted the plastic edging with black.

I used a variety of grays, browns, and sand colors to drybrush the surface of the terrain boards. The river was left a suitably muddy brown, while the paths were lightened to a lighter, drier sandy tan.

Finally I gave the exposed rock work a mix of gray and white drybrush to pick out the stoney details.

I'm pretty pleased with the way the boards are turning out. If only I had opted for creating a desert I'd be done, but I'm going to push on and incorporate vegetation to model a drizzly, cool northern European terrain. Now, I just need to figure out how to flock something so big!