Pico terrain experiments

I haven't had much hobby time as of late, so many projects have been languishing. I thought I had some brilliant ideas on an easy yet adaptable way to make jungle, and it has fallen flat for a couple of reasons. Here's a pic.



The first is that using a net backing with nails poked through didnt give a good look, the height didn't work well and it wasn't as flexible as I had hoped.  The second was that making enough to cover large areas would be very difficult. And the third was color. As you can see in the pic above one color is way brighter than the others, which are mutted.  Turns out that my new mat is basically the same color as the more olive colored clumps and the rest look so very very dull against the mat.  So I will have to go brighter.
My current plan is to use batting sheets for seat padding, paint soak them to the appropriate colors (much brighter than the usual flock) and then glue clump foliage with teh appropriate bright color over the top of them.  This way I should be able to make larger areas, get variable heights as well as being able to drape the sheets over slopes and hills to get realistic contouring.  I'd probably have to place the minis on top of the jngle but that probably won't faze me.

I've also been working on some paddies.  Here's the pile:



I painted a few as if they had water in them, as you can see to the left side of the pic, but the color is too much of a bright tan.  I've also put some static grass into some to represent mature rice, and it doesn't look too bad.  I'll have to sort the water color before making more.  One thing I don't like is that these were made with no-shrink caulk and I have yet to find a replacement for the dirt I used to use (nor have I made a trip to 'red dirt country' to resupply) so they look very amateurish.

More to come as I continue to experiment...

Dude, looking good! Glad to see you back at it.

Thanks! The static grass is a pain in the ass, and I worry about it's durability. Flock would be sturdier but not look the part. Grrrrr. And I still need dirt!!

Darby,

Check this out:

https://daggerandbrush.wordpress.com/2015/06/21/built-on-shaky-ground-flexible-wargaming-terrain/

Last trip to Home Depot I bought some drywall joint tape. I have not had an opportunity to try yet, busy with another project

Hope to try soon, looks very promising, especially for 6mm forest.
Patrick

That is a darn nifty idea, thank you Patrick. I'll give it a look.
I hit on using foam for chair seats for the forest canopy, basically using pliers to tear out tufts of the foam down to close to the full depth thus creating little "islands". This allows the piece to be flexible but also leaves raised areas to give dome depth to the pieces. The torn out foam can then be chopped and used as flock. My only problem so far is getting the colors right.
I'll try making a step by step, and in the process hopefully validate the theory!