Fog as terrain?

[Maniacal_cackle]

Short of fog machines, I'm not sure I've ever seen fog implemented in a way that I like on a wargaming table. Anyone have suggestions for stuff that looks good for making fog?

Alternatively, suggestions on concealing & dense (but not severe) terrain, particularly if it fits well in a city board.

Currently we just have 'parks' in the middle of our city board with forests, but fog would look better.

[Maniacal_cackle]

One thought that occurs is a fog 'base' to represent the mechanical area of fog being present, and then removable floofy bits to look like wispy fog?

This video could help with the second bit:

 

[Maniacal_cackle]

I guess smoke is an idea as well (perhaps with hazardous - burning)

 

[ezramantis]

I'm with maniacal_cackle. A piece of paper, felt, plastic, what have you to define the area of the fog. Then place wispy bits on that area.

I like using shapes cut from the thin clear plastic that packaging shells are made from. It defines the area without obscuring the playmat or terrain board underneath.

This is how i do my forests and other severe terrain as well. I have a bunch of trees and rocks that I scatter about on pieces of green heathered felt. This setup allows me to move the trees/rocks during a game to accomodate model placement.

You can also get clear vinyl at some fabric/craft stores if you'd like something more flexible and with a bit of grip. It's sometimes sold as a tablecloth cover or, i guess, for old ladies to make couch covers? Could even speckle some paint onto it to give it a visual difference from the mat below it without completely obscuring the mat. (Dang, that's a good idea. I'm gonna try that.)

[SEV]

What about dry ice 😆

Clear plastic is the way to go I think. Cut random shapes, glue themtogether (one flat and the other perpendicular to create some 3d effect). Than, spray everything with a mix of mat varnish and off white / light grey. The different layer and shape should give you different transparency...  if you want a stronger cloud effect I guess you can jam some wadding (drybrush with light grey) between to piece of clear plastic.

 

Warning : this is only theory tinkering. Maybe none of that will work.

[touchdown]

The smoke terrain looks like it would have to be impassible just given it's shape and how far it sticks up.

I think if you really want concealing and dense terrain you have to just use flat pieces and just imagine the 3rd dimension. Also there's nothing stopping foliage from being concealing and dense but not severe. Imagine an orchard, you can't see through it but it's easy enough to walk though.

[Maniacal_cackle]

11 hours ago, touchdown said:

The smoke terrain looks like it would have to be impassible just given it's shape and how far it sticks up.

I think if you really want concealing and dense terrain you have to just use flat pieces and just imagine the 3rd dimension. Also there's nothing stopping foliage from being concealing and dense but not severe. Imagine an orchard, you can't see through it but it's easy enough to walk though.

Fair point about orchards!

For the flat vs. 3d, I think the ideas above should cover it (a flat base with 3d objects you can move out of the way when models move into the fog).

[Adran]

If I was going to make it 3D I would probably try and create a thin wire frame at a height above models, and hang wisps of thin or clear material down from the frame to add that small degree of visual interruption. 

But that probably requires me to have lots of time in which to play around with fog effects, so I'm really just going to use flat markers. 

[unti]

I haven't build any fog terrain but we use these reeds as concealing. Can be removed for model placement and could be everywhere in an old broken down part of the city, although we mostly use them on the little river