terrain and basing issues

[cowbell]

I need to do a board up soon for WFB but I have two ideas and problems with both. Sadly at the moment they are a bit too vague to experiment on yet so I need advice.

The first idea was a yellow plain like in the civilization games. I liked the idea because I am not a fan of the green grass idea that is so prevalent in WFB. But as usual I haven\'t the foggiest idea how to do it.

The second is a snow board(bad pun) but while I know all the traditional ways of doing snow , doing them for a themed board and army basing wouldn\'t work because it would be too monotone, so I need a partially snow board. I have no idea how to do this and since I live in a place where it never snows , I have nothing to compare it too.

Also I have a banshee I painted(no pictures sorry) in a fire pattern using the hot lead tutorial and it worked out pretty well but I haven\'t a clue how to base it. I wanted to go with the whole burned witch theme but I am probably going to have to sculpt parts of the base.Do I go with burned out pyre or flames or normal to go with the army or something else?

 

[freakinacage]

don\'t have a clue about the first one.

as for snow, make your board and build it up with filler as per normal. if you want, you could have some rocks or dead shrubbery poking through the snow, if so, do that now. then cover it in a thinish mix of baking soda and pva. when it is coated but still wet, sprinkle with more baking soda and leave for a day or so. then shake off the excess soda. if you want it to look slushy, don\'t add the last layer of soda. you can have ice as well (like a frozen lake). gw did a good tut on it and suggested using clear plastic with a little pvs splattered beneath it so it looks like air bubbles. not entirely sure how they did it, but have an experiment, it\'s shouldn\'t be too difficult

the banshee you could do on a normal base which you use for your army but have it burnt all around the banshee. a pic would help though!

 

[Shawn R. L.]

If you\'re asking about yellow grass, what I do is I bought a long strip of the fuzzy stuff from Santa\'s hat at a local craft store, painted a small patch with a yellow ochre (or any color), run my hand back and forth across it for a few minuets to keep the hairs from sticking together. I then cut small tuft\'s off and with a pair of tweezers, dip one end in white glue and place. With a pair of scissors you can go back and \'mow the lawn\' to the height desired.

 

[freakinacage]

thats a good idea shawm, will try that sometime

 

[airhead]

Yellow grass:
large boxes (quarts/liters) of model railroad flock for short grass. Comes in lots of colors. Get two or three cans and kinda intermix them to keep it from looking like a lawn.

http://www.woodlandscenics.com/index.htm

Find your local model railroad shop.

throw in some bushes, trees, walls, etc. to make it interesting.

Snow:
Home depot/lowes/etc. Get a 5 gallon bucket of sheetrock joint compound. Trawel it on the plywood, kinda thin. You\'ll need to repeat as it shrinks bad and will probably crack in that large an area.

Temporary: Like you can throw over the FLGS\'s tables? Try the local fabric store and get some felt, 4\' x 10\' ought to cover most tables.

 

[Kosh]

I agree with Airhead. I had a friend who used a mixture of multi-colored railroad flock and light sand. The effect was nice but the real kicker was that he then used static grass in growth patterns that he got from a book that showed examples of terrain around certain parts of Spain and Italy.

Then he used a airbrush with several colors, dark then light to give it all a weathered feel.

I\'m affraid I don\'t have a picture but I hope I conveyed the process he used.

Oh, I should also note that he didn\'t static grass the entire board. A lot of spaces were just flock/sand as to allow for terrain pieces.