Terrain from Junk

Twigs make forests

2013-03-13T08:55:00.000-04:00

Today I've got an idea which is nice and simple, and gives you a load of easy to make and easy on the eye terrain for very little outlay. Usually, wargames tables feature trees in full bloom, but some of the most striking photographs of the Great War are of trees blasted by artillery until they have lost every branch and scrap of leaf. Fortunately, it's the perfect time of year to recreate that look in scale.

Desiderata:
* Hot glue gun and sticks
*A base (I've used a spare bit of plywood here)
* Sand
* PVA glue
* Paint and brushes
* Some twigs from the garden

1) Make sure the twigs are dry, and aren't filled with wee creepy crawlies. This is both for their sake and yours. Do you want to explain that the house is suddenly full of woodlice because you brought in a load of wood? Didn't think so!

2) Sort the twigs so you have ones that look right, and put a few on each base. Don't overcrowd a base or you won't be able to move your infantry through it. Grab the hot glue gun and stick the twigs to the base.

3) Paint slightly diluted PVA over the base, and cover it with sand. Once this has dried apply another coat of diluted PVA to seal in the sand. See Fig. 1.

4) Wait for the second coat of PVA to dry, then paint it. If you want, you could add some dead leaves, bits of grass, skulls or other detritus, but you can quite easily just paint the model as totally blasted and lifeless. See Figs. 2, 3 & 4.

5) There you go, folks. Nice and simple. You can get a very evocative forest in this way in absolutely no time at all. See Figs. 5&6.

Until next time, happy gaming!

Build a bigger bunker

2013-03-08T08:55:00.000-05:00

Hi, I'm Pete, and I've been asked to contribute to this nifty blog. I have been fond for a fair few years of recycling bits and bobs to make terrain. I'm equally fond of vegan ice cream (since I'm a vegan), and I have loads of old containers littering the house. They're octagonal, so make good-looking bunkers, but smaller (or differently-shaped) ones work equally well. What I do is get the ice cream tub, cut a hole in its underside, and vision-slits in its sides, then knock up a door from some plasticard, and glue that on. I thicken up the walls with some foamcard secured with a hot glue gun, and make sure that the vision-slits go all the way through the wall. Then I apply a bit of diluted PVA glue, sprinkle sand over that, and let it dry. I apply another coat of diluted PVA glue so the sand doesn't fall off like the dandruff of someone who really needs a medicated shampoo, and when that's dry, I slap on the paint. Because it's mostly coated with sand, dry-brushing with successively lighter shades of grey (or other colours more suited to your gaming table) works brilliantly. You can set these things up so they have a massive vantage point from the front, all-round coverage, or strategic blind spots - whichever suits your style. Check out these pictures for an idea of what I mean.

We can rebuild them...

2012-05-07T10:31:00.000-04:00

Ever had a piece of terrain that you no longer liked? Don't just chuck it out, recycle it! I put together these pieces of terrain a few years back during my Fallout 3 addiction and the beginning of my love for the post-apocalyptic genre. I rediscovered them a few weeks back whilst going through my terrain collection.

To be honest, I'd never been completely happy with them. They don't look terrible, but there was a few parts that annoyed me - partly as I don't seem to have been able to decide whether I wanted them still being utilised by the locals or completely abandoned to decay and also as you could see into the unpainted interior in some sections.

I did what any good scavenger does - broke out the pliers and ripped them apart! I saved all the goodies and then went about rebuilding the first one into a lived-in post-apocalyptic home. To begin with, I got a screwdriver out and removed the plastic "glass" insert that bugged me so much.

After that, I went about covering up the windows with corrugated card and a mix of different materials, adding some foamboard struts to add strength to the whole thing. Lashings of hot glue sealed everything together!

The finished (apart from painting and basing materials...) product! I added a chimney in the roof, some spare tires, a cog of some sort and used filler to close any gaps. The camper is mounted on an MDF base. I'm much happier with the results - it's quite clearly still being used and will look perfect in my shantytown!

If you have any more ideas for how any of these pieces could be used in terrain, please leave a comment!

Save those packing materials!

2012-05-04T10:15:00.000-04:00

I'm always on the lookout for interesting packing materials, nicely shaped cans, boxes, decent corrugated card - anything that I might be able to use in one of my terrain projects!

This piece of packaging was the box that my old digital camera arrived in - to be honest, I think I was more excited about this than the camera itself!

The packaging is an eggbox-card shell, which you get all kinds of different electrical gadgets in. I've had this one nestled away with the idea of turning it into some Tatooine-esque post-apocalyptic shantytown buildings...

I separated the different sections of the cardboard with a craft knife and began to trim the edges to blend them better into MDF bases - I'll get 3 buildings out of this piece of packing material.

Before gluing the pieces to their separate bases/additional pieces, I used some junk materials (in this case, some polystyrene foam packing that I couldn't really use due to it's lack of durability, plus some scraps of foamboard) to add some sturdiness to the pieces, rather than having them hollow. As always with terrain, the hot glue gun is your friend!

Here's one of the pieces, combined with an old junked Rhino, various additions and some polyfilla (spackle for those in the US!) - these could work well in a lot of different urban environments - for example, as pre-fabricated dwellings.

If you have any more ideas for how any of these pieces could be used in terrain, please leave a comment!

Reinforcements! Please welcome Chris.

2012-04-10T11:37:00.002-04:00

Chris from Chris' Miniature Woes has sportingly agreed to assist me with creating content to try and get Terrain from Junk back up and running again. The goal is to get more "junk" posts up, and Chris also has big plans for some tutorials as well!

April is looking pretty swamped for me currently, but I hope throughout the summer months to get into the swing of some terrain building now that I own a house with a garage so I don't need to make a huge mess indoors!

So keep on the lookout for Chris' posts, definitely continue commenting with ideas and if you have any further suggestions, or are interested in becoming a TfJ author yourself, please contact us at terrainfromjunk@yahoo.com

Heads Up: GW's Great Gameboard Giveaway.

2010-08-25T11:56:00.000-04:00

Games Workshop is giving away a completely finished Realms of Battle gameboard to some lucky person who submits some terrain photos. I know of five people (2 + 3) who can enter this with a quick email!!

The short version;

Be a registered user of the Games Workshop website and Email a few pictures to GW of any piece of terrain you have made and painted by Friday the 3rd of September.

The long version (copy & paste from GW site);

Right then, on to the competition: Warhammer World are just about to run their first ever Realm of Battle Workshop, where you get to paint and texture your very own gameboard over the course of a day. Intrigued, I've decided to have a go myself and have booked a special session for tomorrow. Now, as I already own two gameboards, and we've plenty here in the office I thought I'd give my finished gameboard away, in what I'm cheerfully calling 'The Great gameboard Giveaway'. So, to win yourself a Citadel Realm of Battle Gameboard all you have to do is email me a picture or two of a great-looking terrain piece that you've made and painted. The closing date is Friday the 3rd of September. Oh and don't worry, if you're one of the dozen or so folk that sent me some pictures of your terrain over the weekend, I'll count your entries too.

Unless you're particularly interested in the legal stuff for the giveaway or are having a slow day at work, you can stop reading here.
Gameboard Giveaway : Competition Terms & Conditions

Entrants must be 12 years of age or over and must be registered account holders with Games Workshop Limited ("Promoter"). Employees of Promoter may not enter.
Entries must be original and the sole work of the entrant. Entries submitted on behalf of third parties will not be considered.
The winning entry will be chosen by Promoter's Global Web Team and the winner notified by email by Monday 6th September 2010. The judges' decision will be final and no conversation or correspondence will be entered into.
The winner will receive a customised Citadel Realm of Battle Gameboard and have their entry published on Promoter's website.
Entries should be submitted by email to: whatsnewtoday@games-workshop.co.uk between midnight (GMT) on 18 August 2010 and midnight (GMT) on 3rd September 2010. Late entries will not be considered.
By entering the competition entrants agree that Promoter may use their name, age and place of residence (in the format Rob W, 21, of Nottingham, UK) for advertising and promotional purposes.
By entering the competition entrants agree that their submissions will become the property of the Promoter in accordance with the Promoter's submissions policy (click here).
Promoter reserves the right to vary any of these terms and conditions without notice. In such event Promoter will make reasonable efforts to communicate changes to entrants.
This competition will be governed by the laws of England and Wales and subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the English courts.

Entry to the competition indicates acceptance of these terms and conditions as final and legally binding.
Promoter: Games Workshop Limited, Willow Road, Lenton, Nottingham, NG7 2WS.

Data Protection:
Games Workshop Ltd is registered as a Data Controller in the United Kingdom under the Data Protection Act 1998 (the "Act"). The data given as part of this competition will be held and processed under the terms of the Act. We may use that data for communication, administration of the competition, and security purposes. We will not sell, share or give any information given to us as part of this competition to anyone outside the Games Workshop group of companies without your explicit consent or unless the law permits or requires us to do so.
By submitting your personal information you consent to the processing of your personal data as set out above and you confirm that the information is accurate and complete.

WINNER - terrain building contest #2

2010-08-10T21:27:00.000-04:00

voting has closed for the second terrain building contest, so it's time to announce the winner!

poll results placed John in first with 48 points, Chris in second with 22 points and Thomas in third with 14 points.
John earned 1 bonus point, Chris earned 2 bonus points and Thomas earned 4 bonus points.

Congratulations John for your excellent cat bowl outpost, please send your mailing address to terrainfromjunk@yahoo.com so your prize can be sent.

final results;
John (48+1) = 49 points
Chris (22 + 2) = 24 points
Thomas (14 + 4) = 18 points

thanks to all for participating!

voting: terrain building contest #2 (aka the entries)

2010-08-03T18:05:00.001-04:00

contest #2 has earned one more entry than the first contest. one of these three talented gentlemen will be taking home an imperial bastion! in a randomly generated order - here are the entries.

chaos bastion by Chris
(currently at; +2 points)

tau bastion by Thomas @ Hammer and the Sword
(currently at; +4 points)

cat bowl outpost by John @ Santa Cruz Warhammer
(currently at; +1 points)

please use the voting module to the right to vote for an entry. voting will be open for seven days.

Submissions to Terrain from Junk's second terrain building contest... Closed (well pretty much)

2010-08-01T06:00:00.004-04:00

Don't want to be too tight but take this as your final warning. Email your submissions now!

Comments working again!!!

2010-07-26T07:47:00.001-04:00

Wow, well it must've been going on for nearly a month - but nobody mentioned that comments weren't working until this past weekend. I assume it happened during the template change.
What this means is;

You can now enter the $40 GC giveaway contest.
You can also post comments/questions in the second terrain building contest.

A big thank you to ajkempf for pointing it out!

terrain building contest #2 - 10 days left!!

2010-07-21T10:39:00.000-04:00

just a quick heads up that there's only 10 days left to complete your entry for our second terrain building contest!

there is an excellent prize available of a complete imperial bastion! don't forget your entry needs to be suitable to count as a bastion, and your photo needs a piece of paper with "terrain from junk" written on it.

terrain building contest #2

2010-07-01T10:30:00.023-04:00

the contest
build a piece of terrain that could count as a bastion and incorporate pieces of junk that we need example photos for into your entry.
the prize
the winner of terrain building contest #2 will receive as their prize, one (1) complete imperial bastion!

the rules

You must be a follower of Terrain from Junk (hereafter referred to as TfJ)
The deadline for contest submissions is July 31st, 2010.
Send all submissions to terrainfromjunk@yahoo.com
The piece of terrain must be suitably large to be considered a bastion!
You must use a piece of junk listed on TfJ, choose from this list.
The final submission must be fully painted and based.
You must submit a completed (painted/based) photo with a piece of paper that says "Terrain from Junk".
The winner will be determined by poll results and bonus points.
Bonus points available (5);
(0-2) using extra pieces of junk from the above list.
(0-3) providing photos of junk in a similar fashion to what's found in TfJ posts (with miniatures for scale)
Voting will be open for seven days.

best of luck! any questions can be submitted through commenting on this post.

rewarding participation... update!

2010-06-06T15:43:00.003-04:00

april introduced the rewards concept, and by the end of the month a follower will receive a reward! whoever has the most participation for one of the three submission categories (randomly selected from; example photos of terrain built with junk, tutorials on building terrain from junk to link, ideas on uses for various pieces of junk) will earn themselves a little bit of loot.

the only requirements are to be a follower and that what you've submitted must be used on the site. here are the standings (photos/tutorials/ideas - name)

0/0/6 - Bitzjunkie

1/1/1 - Cawshis

0/1/0 - Col Corbane

1/0/0 - Dragontigre

5/0/3 - Flamekebab

0/0/1 - Herald of Discord

2/1/0 - Mik

2/1/0 - Screamingabdab

as you can see, Bitzjunkie is well in the lead for idea submission, Flamekebab is holding down the photo submission category and so far the tutorial submission category is up for grabs. but there's still the majority of the month left - so get crackin'!

as always the email address for submitting content is terrainfromjunk@yahoo.com. ideas can be submitted through comments right in the post.

tutorial: escape pods (courtesy of mik's minis)

2010-06-06T15:31:00.005-04:00

in this tutorial Mik creates some crash landed escape pods out of pvc bits and toothpaste caps

part 1 (ideas/plan/build) & part 2 (finished)

before
after

perfect use for any spare plumbing junk you may have, and an interesting new piece of junk - the toothpaste lid.

terrain building contest #1 - the results!!!!

2010-06-05T09:00:00.009-04:00

the voting for the two entries to the first contest was completed at the end of may.

user voting placed flamekebab in first with 68 points and cawshis clay in second with 55 points.
flamekebab had earned 5 bonus points to cawshis' 1 bonus point.
for judges voting, 10 points per 25 user votes means first place gains 40 points and 7 points per 25 user votes means second place gains 28 points.

anyone skilled at math will know who the winner is...
drum roll please (for those with poor math skills)...

Flamekebab! congratulations, please send your mailing address to terrainfromjunk@yahoo.com so your prize can be sent.

final results were;

Flamekebab = 101 points (68 + 5 + 28)
Cawshis Clay = 96 points (55 + 1 + 40)

terrain building contest #1 - last week of voting!

2010-05-24T09:15:00.002-04:00

just a final reminder that this is the last week of voting for the terrain building contest #1, you can check out the entries here - and there is a voting module in the top right of the site. it has been neck & neck all the way, with both contestants in the lead at various times.

you can check out individual posts for each of the entries as well

flamekebabs entry @ the unnamed gorkamorka site (also an excellent tutorial!)

cawshis clays entry @ adepticus prime (also linking other contests!)

corrugated cardboard

2010-05-03T20:15:00.001-04:00

either custom single-sided corrugated cardboard or just cheap cardboard boxes
corrugated cardboard; corrugated metal siding

examples in use

we need examples, send us your terrain photos

these examples from flamekebab @ the unnamed gorkamorka site

if you have any more ideas for how any of these pieces could be used in terrain, please comment

yogurt cups

2010-05-03T20:14:00.004-04:00

empty, washed yogurt cups.
cup; bunker, silo, storage tank, cryo-stasis tube, automated sentry

examples in use

we need examples, send us your terrain photos

this example from flamekebab @ the unnamed gorkamorka site

if you have any more ideas for how any of these pieces could be used in terrain, please comment

pvc pipe

2010-05-03T20:14:00.003-04:00

various pieces of pvc pipe
straight; tunnels, pipeline
corner; vents
caps; escape pods

examples in use

we need examples, send us your terrain photos

these examples from flamekebab @ the unnamed gorkamorka site
this example from mik's minis

if you have any more ideas for how any of these pieces could be used in terrain, please comment

food cans

2010-05-03T20:13:00.003-04:00

any type of food can - beans, candy, coffee, hot chocolate, nuts, etc.
can; storage tank, silo, bunker, industrial building
lid; door

examples in use

we need examples, send us your terrain photos

this example from flamekebab @ the unnamed gorkamorka site
this example from adepticus prime
this example from mik's minis

if you have any more ideas for how any of these pieces could be used in terrain, please comment

cd spindles

2010-05-03T20:13:00.000-04:00

empty writable cd spindle
spindle; ork fort, bunker
base; lightning rod, command post
lid; storage tank

examples in use

we need examples, send us your terrain photos

this example from screamingabdab from eastern fringe forums

if you have any more ideas for how any of these pieces could be used in terrain, please comment

molded cardboard packaging

2010-05-03T19:48:00.004-04:00

any molded cardboard packaging (usually comes to protect electronics or toys)
packaging; bunker, silo, industrial building

examples in use

we need examples, send us your terrain photos

this example from poussefigs in france

if you have any more ideas for how any of these pieces could be used in terrain, please comment

terrain building contest #1 - the entries (aka please vote)

2010-05-01T10:49:00.022-04:00

entries have been received for the first terrain building contest. the quantity of entries is low (just two) but the quality is very high! we really need your votes!

storage tank/silo by cawshis clay @ adepticus prime
(currently sitting on +1 bonus point; bits photo provided in tfj style)

desert scrap pile by flamekebab @ the unnamed gorkamorka site
(currently sitting on +5 bonus points; bits photo provided in tfj style * 2, using extra pieces of junk * 3)

please use the voting module on the right to vote for your favourite.

terrain building contest #1 - 3 days left

2010-04-27T08:16:00.001-04:00

we've hit the final 3 days in our first terrain building contest. this will be the final reminder post - please ensure you get your photos submitted to terrainfromjunk@yahoo.com before may 1st.

up for grabs is some games workshop plastic planetstrike terrain, and keep in mind these photos will also count towards our "rewards" program for content submissions.

terrain building contest #1 - at halfway mark

2010-04-15T18:45:00.004-04:00

just throwing up a quick reminder about our first terrain building contest. at the halfway point now - two weeks to go - and we're sure than anybody whose been sitting on their hands could still manage to put together a great entry in two weeks - what more do you need than some junk, some paint and some time? don't forget about the great prize!

also don't forget that your contest submission will also end up counting towards our "rewards" - two requirements of the contest (photos of bits and photos of completed) will count as submissions and inch you closer towards more great stuff. comments are definitely the easiest submission as all it takes is an idea and posting a comment. look for more frequent rewards related postings soon.