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Bayou Scenery


fatolaf

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Gotcha. I'm going to put a pin in this, and get some photos of my stuff to go along with my suggestions. Building ramshackle swamp structures is much easier than it might seem, because inconsistency and messy lines work in your favor. 

For the time being, here's a wide shot of some (not all) of my board:

Cel4V9gW4AEVUd6.jpg

CemBfAyXEAEA0q8.jpg:large

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Thanks!

I think you get the idea. 

My "board" is actually nine 12"x12" dark cork tiles, sold at craft stores for hanging on walls. Each one is built a bit differently, with grassy areas, water, mud, and other features. Having the board made of separate tiles not only allows me to rearrange it for each game, but the flip side of the tiles can be used for a different board. These are the tiles I use.

To create the water features, I used a craft knife to carve out shallow areas, then brushed them clean of dust and sealed them with a 50/50 mix of Elmer's glue and water. Once dry, I painted the carved out areas in shades of green to simulate algae, using black to make areas appear deeper. Then, I used Vallejo's Water Effects gel in thin layers to build up the water, alternating between clear coats and coats mixed with green wash, to make the water look suitably swampy.

The grassy areas are self explanatory, similar to how you'd base a miniature, just in bigger areas. 

All the structures were built with popsicle sticks, built on simple frames of foam board, then stained with layers of ink wash to bring out the grain. I used bendy straws painted with Tinny Tin as chimneys. You can go crazy with the structures, and if you find an area that looks messy, just board it up with more sticks, or jam some foliage in. Remember: it's the bayou, so everything is crawling with kudzoo and moss. You can check out this board on Pinterest for some of the visual examples I used when making the buildings. 

The building roofs are made from corrugated cardboard split in half, then painted tin and covered in crawling vines and rust.

The walkways are straight-up popsicle sticks, stained again, with lots of broken edges and holes so they look beat up. Underneath them, each section has two runners that lift the walkways above the surface of the board, the way an elevated path through a swamp would. 

All my trees were bought from companies who make model train scenery, and were cheap. I just glued them onto cork bases, and covered the bases in my "mud" paint mixture (baking soda, brown acrylic, and sand) and tufts of grass. The bases are wide enough to be stable during gameplay, but blend into the texture and color of the cork underneath, so they don't have that super "terrain-" look. 

Also, I have fences, junk piles, bones, pennants, a moonshine still built from a tin can, an outhouse, a pumpkin patch with Sculpey pumpkins, and various other detritus, most of which double as counters and markers for various schemes and strategies. 

TL;DR: use junk and get creative. A swamp board is a great place to start playing with making terrain, because it's not supposed to be clean and tidy! Plus, you get to decide exactly what your board looks like, and it is SO MUCH cheaper than buying pre-made terrain.

Good luck!

 

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DGWSwamp1.jpg

 

This is a small piece I made for my swamp terrain, not a lot of buildings but you can see a few things might could help you. The bridge is sprues, carved and painted to look like wood, the small posts are from dowels, cut and painted to look more unfinished, like logs. A lot of the greenery is moss of various types, treated with 50/50 water/PVA to both keep them in place and to protect them. The medium green bushes are just floral wire, dipped in glue, dipped in flock. The tree is actually a bought model one.

 

^^ has my swamp board in the first  post, a display board I made for my Gremlins, has a ot of the same ideas as wolpertinger's with the shacks etc.

I used a crimper on some plasticard to get teh corrugated look, a lot of matchsticks, popsicle sticks and paperclips. With a little greenstuff in places to help me make "beer" cans.

 

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