Saturday, March 15, 2014

Terrain idea

While moving junk around and trying to locate the minimal amount of stuff to do something to scratch my terrain itch, I came across this....

Please forgive the horrible picture. I will have to learn how to take pictures with this iPad. So this is a 4x4 piece of tile I turned into a terrain piece. I had a lot of tile left over from a bathroom remodel so instead of chucking the tile, it sat in a box for a year until it struck me, I could use it to make terrain.

I built the terrain up on the underside of the tile as it was a roughed up surface and would allow for better adhesion of whatever I put on it. On the 'show' side I put four felt sticky pads so I could move it around on the table without scratching it.

My idea was to put terrain features on dozens of tiles and the use them as modular outdoor terrain. I never finished the project. That particular piece came out of junk bin along with a few others. I think is the execution were perfected it might work out all right for small scenery pieces. One of the problems I ran Minot was locating larger tile for larger terrain pieces that would match up to the 4x4.

Just thought I would through that ther so anyone who sees potential in that approach could run with it.

 

2 comments:

Spiralbound said...

Using tiles as a terrain base is a great idea, but only if you already have a bunch of otherwise unusable tile. Buying them for this isn't cost effective. Larger floor tiles do exist, but are rather fragile, converting into sharp shards of ceramic when broken.

A more durable and cost effective solution is sheets of MDF or plywood. It is available in varying thicknesses and in sizes up to 4 ft by 8 ft, thus allowing for many sizes of terrain.

If durability isn't your primary concern, another basing material for terrain is foamcore board or cardboard. It is cheap, lightweight and easy to work with. You need to be gentler with them, but then again, tabletop roleplaying is rarely a full contact sport. :-)

Josh said...

I considered this at one point as well, but quickly realized how heavy tiles can be. The best thing about doing tile terrain on cardboard or foam board is how light and portable they are.

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