Difficulty: Easy/Moderate
Duration: around 30 minutes
Tools/Materials:
- 20mm thick XPS Foam
- A Hot Wire Cutter
- A biro
- A long ruler or other straight edge
- A ruler or tape measure
- Sharp blades such as a scalpel or craft knife
- PVA glue
- A selection of finishing materials
- Acrylic paints, palette, a selection of brushes etc
- Airbrush (optional)
Introduction
For those of you who want to create a modular gaming setup but don’t quite know where to begin, here are a few simple techniques that you can use to get some fantastic looking terrain on the table.
In this particular article we’re looking specifically at XPS Foam as a medium though the materials you can use are limited only by your imagination and ingenuity!
Material Overview
XPS Foam
In Crystal Collapse, the standard elevation height is 20mm, so for the sake of simplicity it is easiest to use 20mm thick XPS sheets, so a single layer represents a single elevation, though if you only have access to thinner sheets you could glue several together to get the height you need, though its going to be far easier to stick to 20mm thick. If your XPS is thicker than 20mm, you could use a hot wire cutter to reduce the thickness.
Hot Wire Cutter
A Hot Wire Cutter is basically a metal wire suspended in a frame and connected to a power source which causes the wire to heat up when the device is turned on. The hot wire melts the XPS foam in a very thin and precise area and allows you to carve through it quickly with a good amount of precision and flexibility. Personally I use one that has a bed, a fixed mounted arm and an adjustable guide rail which makes cutting long straight lines
Biro
I use a Biro to draw details onto the surface of the XPS foam. The biro is unlikely to transfer ink to the surface of the foam, but it will leave a depressed indent wherever you draw. It is ideal to draw the grid on the surface and can also be used to draw out blockwork, bricks, wood planks/woodgrain etc.
Long Ruler/Straight Edge
This could be a piece of wood, meter stick, metal ruler, spirit level or any other item that has a long straight edge that you can use as a guide for marking on your grid. If you need to cut a straight line using a knife you will need this to be made of metal so you don’t damage the edge.
Ruler/Tape Measure
We’ll be using a 40mm x 40mm grid so you’ll need to mark the 40mm squares accurately.
Sharp Blades such as a scalpel or craft knife
We use this for detailing the surfaces of the XPS Foam. Ideally you want a small, thin and manoeuvrable blade with a bunch of extra blades as cutting foam will blunt the blades incredibly quickly! When I was carving the cliff face details on my game board I got through 3 scalpel blades!
Safety Note: be careful not to exert too much pressure on a scalpel blade as the blades can easily snap and ping off!
PVA Glue
PVA Glue has multiple uses for this build – primarily to glue layers together and add any texture materials to the surface. If you plan to use any spray cans on to paint the foam, you’ll also need to brush on a covering of watered down PVA before painting as the substances in the paint will melt the foam and destroy your work! Also steer clear of Superglue and Polystyrene cement as both will also melt the foam.
If you have issues with parts moving whilst the glue is drying, you can use wooden toothpicks/cocktail sticks as pins to help lock the parts in place whilst the glue dries. Applying the glue in a thin, even layer will help to get a good fix and ensure the glue dries quickly.
Additional Materials
you could just carve all of your details and paint your XPS foam terrain pieces, but you can also add texture materials to help with the realism and effects. Gluing sand to the surface can efficiently represent mud or sand and can be painted and drybrushed* to great effect. Adding some cat litter to the sand will add some rocks and boulders to your basing medium and break up a boring flat mass, but use it cautiously as we’re making terrain to play a game on and too many rocks will create a very uneven surface for your miniatures to stand on!
Small sticks, rocks and other natural items that you’ll find out and about can also be used to add detail and texture so be sure to keep your eyes peeled for interesting pieces!
Static grass is great for adding some greenery to your board and comes in varying lengths from 2mm stands up to about 6mm. 6mm are good for decorative tufts but will be too long for general application. You might want to get a couple of different lengths to help vary the look of your terrain. You can also buy premade grass tufts which are sticky glue dots covered in static grass . You simply feel them off the backing and stick them where you want them. These are also available with coloured flock applied to represent flower clusters.
We also have a selection of STL pieces available for you to purchase which you can 3d print yourself at home and add them to your terrain. Mushrooms, trees, crystal clusters, skulls and other such pieces can be used to add some interest to your terrain too.
STEP BY STEP INSTRUCTIONS
STEP 1 – Drawing the Grid
The First thing we need to do is score the grid onto the surface of the foam. It’s easiest to do this as a full sheet so you can use the grid as a guide when cutting. To do this, get your ruler or tape measure and biro, and mark lightly every 40mm down each side. Be sure to start from the same edge each time so your marks line up. place your straight edge against the 2 matching marks on opposite sides of the board, and draw a line across with the biro, pressing quite heavily to create a long straight indent. Repeat this until you have all of the lines in one direction then rotate your board 90 degrees and repeat for the cross lines to complete your grid.
If you find yourself working on too long a piece of foam you may want to add extra guide marks.
STEP 2 – Blocking Out
Once you have your grid complete, you’ll need to cut out a selection of shapes. For maximum flexibility you can create 5 or 6 2×2 pieces that you can stack up in many configurations, but you can also cut more irregular shapes out, stack and glue them to create more unique and cohesive pieces – just do what works best for you! For the purpose of this tutorial I’m using a 1×3 square section (40mm x 120mm).
The hot wire cutter is the best thing to use for this as it will leave you with a nice clean edge to start with. For these cliff edges, I’ll eventually cut deliberately wobbly to get a ridged rocky starting point for a more “natural” finished look, so no need to be too precise about trying to get a perfect square edge!
If you don’t have a hot wire cutter you could do the cuts with a long bladed craft knife (the type with the snap off blades), or even with a serrated bread knife, though the latter will leave you with messy edges and you won’t get quite such a good finish.
STEP 3 – Layer Details
Using your scalpel or craft knife, poke it in to the side of the foam block and make your way round cutting in a rough irregular zigzag type fashion, like I’ve marked out on the foam block.
You’ll want to poke the blade in at least 5mm – it doesn’t matter if you go a bit too deep, but you want to avoid being too shallow or you won’t get clean material removal in the next step.
Next, from the top cut down and inwards to create a 2 tiered rock layer. Change the angles regularly to make it look more natural (I know we’re doing a stylised look but if you make it too regular it will have a man made appearance that we want to avoid when sculpting natural features. For demonstration purposes I’ve marked out my cutting route, but I’d normally freehand it with the blade and save some time. This is easier once you’ve done a few and you’re on a roll!
You don’t need to worry about cutting straight here as uneven cuts with changes in direction will help the overall effect.
Cut these in small sections and remove the chunks of excess foam until you have removed material from above your cut line all around the block like so:
STEP 4 – Detailing
Do another pass over the rock face and bevel the protruding rock edges to add variety to the edge profile and make it more “rock-like”. Whilst doing this I will typically cut some vertical notches into the rock faces and try to take some cues from some of the existing variation from the wobbly edge and the zig zag pattern to carve in some angled grooves to add a bit more surface variety.
Another pass over the rocks to add some areas of depth helps to create some additional interest in the texture.
Once you’ve finished this all the block is ready for painting. To get to this stage of cutting has taken approximately 15 minutes, not including the time I spent taking photographs! Be sure to get all those bits up and in the bin or you’ll regret it later when they stick to everything!
At this stage, if you’ve used XPS foam and sharp cutting blades, the surface should be pretty much ready to begin painting. If youve been a bit rough or used polystyrene or some other material, you may want to consider getting some polyfiller and brushing it over the surfaces to create a smoother finish.
A note on multi-level surfaces
If you have 2 or more elevations that will line up on one or more faces, its best to wait until after they are all glued to begin texturing them. You’ll end up needing to remove a little more material from the top edge to account for the slight gradient needed to get the extra texturing as seen here:
STEP 5 – Assembly
Once you have ALL of the surfaces carved on all of the pieces, you can begin to assemble your stacked layers with PVA. If you feel it needs it, poke some toothpicks/cocktail sticks in to hold the pieces in place, then use a spreader (a piece of cardboard will do) to apply the glue to the bottom of the foam. Then Stick it on top being careful to align to the grid.
If you’re painting with a spray can, you should paint all of the foam with watered down PVA at this stage too, or the spray will melt the foam.
Once you are fully assembled, place it to one side to dry thoroughly before you move on.
From here on out we’re into painting the model. but we’ll save that for another day!
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