Heading in to Fall In! 2018. A few of us Hobby University instructors were asked if we would be interested in creating terrain center piece for Cold Wars 2019. The theme is Extreme Terrain: Mountain Warfare. I’m pretty sure I immediately forgot about it until I showed up to Fall In! However, I remembered a conversation I had just a few weeks prior. During a game of Flames of War a buddy had piece of mountain terrain with Italian buildings on it. I said something along the lines of “Oh man, cool, I’ve always wanted to build a piece like that!.” I immediately responded to myself “Well, you’re not dead soooo you can still do it.”
With this thought in mind I reached out to Hobby University and they said it would be great if I could still build something. They also told me that it didn’t have to be anything big, just a cliff face or something. Well, as you are about to see I didn’t quite listen. . . .
The Mountain itself is crafted out of two inch thick insulation foam cut into shape with a hot knife. Prior to cutting the mountain I laid out my buildings to see if I’d like the shape and size. The buildings are pre-painted buildings from The Miniature Building Authority which have been discontinued as they are longer in the 15mm business. I had borrowed a friends 120w knife but that quit on me so I bought this 150w monster.
This did the trick and went right through the foam. I don’t know if having only one open window was enough to dissipate the fumes so I’d be more careful than I was with that. . . . The layers were glued together with liquid nails. I used plastruct plastic sheets to create a town square and a base for the church to sit on. I used fieldstone and brick. I cut the brick both the long and the short way so I could have brick courses going in different directions. Yes, I’m nuts. I also cut out a switchback road with the hot knife going up the mountain. Finally the whole thing was glued on to a piece of MDF which I cut into shape.
After the basic assembly was completed I sprayed the whole thing with spray paint and let it dry. WARNING: If you didn’t already know it spray paint can eat Styrofoam and ruin your work. With baited breath I followed The Terrain Tutors advice on using spray paint on sytrofoam safely and it worked without problem! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpVg9kCNBjk It was a nerve racking process though!
I then painted the mountain and the town square with Gregory Zuniga’s (Wicked Elf) wet blending technique which I learned by taking his class at Fall In! 2019. If you get a chance to take one of Hobby University’s classes you should! Next up I applied flock and a ton of flowers and static grass tufts. I then applied some weathering powder to the stones and bricks and dull coated the entire thing. After setting it all up I realized that the town was missing a water supply so I created a well with the top of a Vallejo paint dropper bottle, a plastic Renedra base and more plasticard. Done!
The trees were all provided to me by another one of the Hobby University instructors. He teaches a class titled Twisted Wire trees and he can really pump out some forests! He saw me post the mountain on a Facebook group we are in together and offered to make me some trees and ship them to me. I asked for 30 and five days later they arrived in the mail! If you get a chance to take his classes I highly recommend them. There is one Hobby University student that attends his Twisted Wire Trees class at every convention. This guy has to have enough trees to cover a 5’x10′ table by now!
I’d say the whole thing cost me $80 to make and about twenty hours. It’s about 3.5′ long and 2.5′ wide. I’m very happy with how it came out and was told that I’m not officially one of the “dirty boys” of Hobby University, those of terrain fame and glory! I even managed to get in a game with it! http://www.wargamingftb.net/?p=3414
If you are at Cold Wars be sure to check it out. I’m not sure where it will be but it will be on display somewhere!
- Wachtmeister Jensen