I was asked today for input on how one might make a glacial wall. Where one can pick from many looks such as a not-so-clean river of ice a half-mile wide and strewn with dirty snow and random rocks, luckily he wanted a "pretty" looking vertical barrier. Nature is hard to beat at this but you can get a general feel for a sheer cliff of solid ice. A deep blue color viewed within the cracks is a sure fire way to achieve a nice look for a board edge.
While I've normally offered my ideas either in a specific forum topic or in the occasional article in S&P Wargamer, this "fit" well to just plunk it here for whatever good can come from it.
While I would have normally planned this project out and bought some better quality "closed cell" styro, I did have a "free" piece of white open cell that was a good size for this attempt (I've never made ice terrain yet you see).
The proper tool to get the closest to my effort today is an investment, but one that might be borne by a club. It is several hundred dollars (US) but pays great dividends. It is a multi-part tool offering from the Hot Wire Foam Factory. The key to this is a set of bendable wire foam cutters. You can't get far with a straight wire $10 cutter for something such as this. The best you might manage is to get a cheap soldering tool and some good ventilation but I'm not recommending it. As it was, I still needed to use proper ventilation even with the proper tool.
First, I made repeated passes at carving out cracks and sections of Styrofoam. Part of the "personality" of this piece is seeing sections cut away but not really removed. By leaving them in place and adding foam glue (3M spray) and then forcing them in, I was able to simulate fractured chunks and columns of ice that hadn't yet fallen to the will of gravity. If you look closely, you might see level spots at the tops of the columns. These can be temporary figure locations, but I'd say a die roll was in their future to sight-see safely (or not perhaps).
To get added thickness to the piece, I used some of the "waste" which had been removed (the ones that I didn't shove back in or tilt outward precariously). This used the extra pieces as well as added more thickness, beyond the original 3" thickness of the sheet. By the way, the "width" of the sheet was about 12" and the length was about 31".
Artists use this "negative/positive" thinking in their artwork (the kind on canvas), but it also works for building terrain nicely. For example, by carving out a large chunk of styro I got a negative crevasse as well as a positive "plug" that I could reuse.
Here is the way to make good use of the piece. You flip it over and glue the flat side to a section of the large piece that you haven't carved into much yet. This juts the piece when glued outward and adds to the thickness and complexity of the piece. For example, while my sheet was 3" at the start, the final piece was over 5" in some spots.
I then carved on this some after they became part of the "landscape" as it were.
Now came the part of what to use to paint it. If anyone has ever read of my methods, they would know that I use the Krylon H2o spray paint series as they are safe on Styrofoam, offer water based cleanup and mix delightfully when wet.
Although you might do this in reverse with success, I decided it was best for me to start with a dark blue and paint into the deep cracks. While not waiting for drying (this is important to me) I applied a light blue also in the cracks, but working out to the surface. Lastly, I applied a good spray of flat white approapriately called Arctic White :wink:.
That was about it. It took less than two hours to finish and that included taking the photos. I can easily use this as a backdrop on a board edge for several game themes. It was fun and overall was done without encountering any problems.
Now all that I need is a figure of a small scruffy squirrel holding a nut. :wink:
While I've normally offered my ideas either in a specific forum topic or in the occasional article in S&P Wargamer, this "fit" well to just plunk it here for whatever good can come from it.
While I would have normally planned this project out and bought some better quality "closed cell" styro, I did have a "free" piece of white open cell that was a good size for this attempt (I've never made ice terrain yet you see).
The proper tool to get the closest to my effort today is an investment, but one that might be borne by a club. It is several hundred dollars (US) but pays great dividends. It is a multi-part tool offering from the Hot Wire Foam Factory. The key to this is a set of bendable wire foam cutters. You can't get far with a straight wire $10 cutter for something such as this. The best you might manage is to get a cheap soldering tool and some good ventilation but I'm not recommending it. As it was, I still needed to use proper ventilation even with the proper tool.
First, I made repeated passes at carving out cracks and sections of Styrofoam. Part of the "personality" of this piece is seeing sections cut away but not really removed. By leaving them in place and adding foam glue (3M spray) and then forcing them in, I was able to simulate fractured chunks and columns of ice that hadn't yet fallen to the will of gravity. If you look closely, you might see level spots at the tops of the columns. These can be temporary figure locations, but I'd say a die roll was in their future to sight-see safely (or not perhaps).
To get added thickness to the piece, I used some of the "waste" which had been removed (the ones that I didn't shove back in or tilt outward precariously). This used the extra pieces as well as added more thickness, beyond the original 3" thickness of the sheet. By the way, the "width" of the sheet was about 12" and the length was about 31".
Artists use this "negative/positive" thinking in their artwork (the kind on canvas), but it also works for building terrain nicely. For example, by carving out a large chunk of styro I got a negative crevasse as well as a positive "plug" that I could reuse.
Here is the way to make good use of the piece. You flip it over and glue the flat side to a section of the large piece that you haven't carved into much yet. This juts the piece when glued outward and adds to the thickness and complexity of the piece. For example, while my sheet was 3" at the start, the final piece was over 5" in some spots.
I then carved on this some after they became part of the "landscape" as it were.
Now came the part of what to use to paint it. If anyone has ever read of my methods, they would know that I use the Krylon H2o spray paint series as they are safe on Styrofoam, offer water based cleanup and mix delightfully when wet.
Although you might do this in reverse with success, I decided it was best for me to start with a dark blue and paint into the deep cracks. While not waiting for drying (this is important to me) I applied a light blue also in the cracks, but working out to the surface. Lastly, I applied a good spray of flat white approapriately called Arctic White :wink:.
That was about it. It took less than two hours to finish and that included taking the photos. I can easily use this as a backdrop on a board edge for several game themes. It was fun and overall was done without encountering any problems.
Now all that I need is a figure of a small scruffy squirrel holding a nut. :wink:
