Thursday 28 May 2015

246: A Cork Tor Hill

Hills made from foam seem common. I think cork is a good material. When the edges are torn, it has a nice rocky texture. It's more robust than foam. Creating a landscape with visible rock strata is a good way to walk the line between looking natural and having some flat surface to put a model on.
- That's 9mm plywood. 6mm or maybe thinner would do, but I had an offcut. I bevelled the edge by variously hacking at it with a file, a surform (wood grater thingy) and a dremel.
- Toilet rolls cut to random lengths.
- 6mm cork sheet ripped up. I bought mine from amazon.co.uk. You can get it in craft shops. hacking up an old cork noticeboard would probably be a good way to go.
- (hot) glue gun and lots of it. I filled the inside of the toilet rolls around the edges to stick it good and proper.


I used caulk: mastic gun tube, used to squirt around top of skirting board, and paint over. I built this up in layers. and poked extra bits of cork in occasionally. I put the whole thing in a fan oven at 50 degrees to speed things up. This is still several evening's work. Not that long each evening, but it took a few days.

I flocked it with cork dust.
- coat with PVA
- chuck on cork
- shake off excess
- wait for it to dry
- coat with dilute PVA to bind up any loose bits.
This was repeated 3 or 4 times (with oven acceleration).



I added more random battlefield debris (ork, marine, eldar, ...). Painted and added some sickly looking grass.

Done!


9 comments:

  1. Fantastic hill, well worth the effort!!! On a side note, where are the sniper rifles from?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. He cannot build anything out of the box. All the lil'men he ever touches end up different. It's a triumph of diversity. Sort of.

      Delete
    2. I believe they're from Anvil Industries, can't quite remember the name of the gun, but Anvil does a fantastic line of extra weapons and bits to go with marines and the like.

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    3. It's true, I have trouble building something straight from the box. This Is why it takes me 3 months to add 200 points to an army. I did manage, more or less with my Dire Avengers to do them straight.

      The rifles are Anvil Industries "Negotiators". Nice sculpts. Well cast. Good service. They have loads of cool stuff. I used their bionic limbs on my devastators.

      Delete
    4. Thanks for the steer, on the rifles.

      Delete
  2. Agree, those hills are great, so much more character than traditional foam or plastic hills. I've saved this tutorial for later use.

    Also - those sniper conversions are tops!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. They're fantastic to play on as well, multiple levels and lots of flat surfaces to place mini's on make them much more useful than the sloping sided hills you see and that come on the realm of battle board.

      Delete
  3. I see you've been cooking up terrain (see what I did there ?). I think sticking it in the oven is brave - I'm guessing a low heat ?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. 50 degrees fan oven. It's a defrost setting.
      - plastic bits, mostly OK. beware of thin things like swords
      - resin will warp
      - cardboard, expanded polystyrene, wood, cork, all good.

      My hobby corner is at the end of the kitchen...

      Delete

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