Wargames Stuff: Making Hills

As my weekend game has been called off I've instead made some scenery, I've found there are plenty of guides for making scenery on the internet, however the one thing they lack in my opinion is photos, this is my attempt to remedy this!

Materials
· Plasticard or stiff card (not corrugated)
· Polystyrene sheet or Blue Foam
· Sharp Knife (or hot wire cutter)
· PVA Glue
· Filler
· Coarse & Fine Sand
· Big Pot of Undercoat (Poster Paint or Acrylic)
· Foliage (Flock & Bush material)

Cut the base of the hill from plasticard, this will form the template for your hill. I would advise the use of plasticard over cardboard as the card can warp and leave your hills uneven on the table. Put the template on the polystyrene/Foam and draw round it with a marker, then cut this with a sharp knife. I have used polystyrene sheet here simply because I had a couple of sheets come with a new freezer, the sheet shown below is 1” thick, suitable I thought for hills in 10mm.

Now with your foam block the same size as your base flip it over and carve it with the knife into a rough hill shape, success here is based upon the sharpness of the knife, a blunt knife will make a mess (especially with polystyrene) and not give a clean finish. Alternatively you could use a hot wire cutter.Try to get the sides sloping gently if you want to able to stand miniature on them.

Once you got your hill shape carved, stick it to the base with PVA and leave it to dry.

At this point I like to give the whole piece a coat of filler, to fill any gaps and give a good surface for the paint to adhere too.

I’ve decided for this particular hill to have a ruined building on it as well as a crater both have been stuck on with PVA. You can add anything you want here to fit in with the general theatre, I’ve used trees crashed helicopters, the list is endless.

The addition of some large scatter stones, stuck on with PVA.

And some fine sand again with PVA. If you are making temperate hills I would suggest only putting the scatter material where you don’t intend to flock. After the scatter has had a couple of hours to dry I’ve given the whole model a coat of watered down PVA then given it 12 hours to dry (overnight)

Next day the whole model receives an undercoat (Raw Umber in this case), the colour for this should be suitable for the theatre intended. I’ve used artists acrylic as this can be bought in large tubs pretty cheaply. I’ve given 12 hours drying time for this.

Once thoroughly dried I’ve simply drybrushed the hill to get it the colour required, for this particular hill I’ve gone through six shades of brown/Sand). For temperate hills just drybrush the areas not intended for flock. The building here has also had a quick drybrush and the middle floor painted brown.