Making Explosion Markers

I love a good spectacle, and nothing catches the eye like an over-the-top Michael Bay style fireball. I needed a few good explosions for the game I'm tinkering with, so took a shot at creating a few explosion markers of my own. The clump foliage method seemed to produce pretty wicked results, which I attempted to replicate for my own wargame tables.

I used an mdf base, drilled some holes and glued kabob skewers into them.

I added foil, sand and wall filler to the base to build up a crater from which the fireball would be erupting.

Using a liberal amount of hot glue and various shades of fall clump foliage, I affixed the foam to the skewers, filling out the central base area with additional polyfill stuffing. I drenched the completed explosions in Woodland Scenics scenic cement to fuse everything together (I tried watered down white glue, but didn't feel they results were as robust as the scenic cement).

I used craft paint to ease the transition between colors, then hit the whole thing with black spray from above. A bit of gray drybrushing and basing, and they were done.

The whole process wasn't too difficult and these markers have already proven useful in our playtesting. Give it a try, they're not too tricky!