Let's Make - Cheap & Easy Terrain Bases
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 2 ก.ค. 2024
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In this Let's Make, we look a few cheap and easy alternatives to basing your terrain on MDF. Checkout the "Let's Make" playlist for more cheap & easy terrain tutorials - • Let's Make Cheap & Eas...
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I know this is an old video but i gotta say thank you for the post. This was rlly helpful for a beginner like me. Thank you!
I just found your channel, and after moving away from my local gaming store where I normally play, I'm in need of a new board and new Terrain. Your videos are excellent, and I can't wait to get building.
Welcome aboard mate!
I have two thin mdf backing boards for maxi frame posters 60cmx90xm, and some insulation foam. The insulation foam is £2.49 for a 1200mm x 600mm sheet with free shipping. I also have some 5mm foam board and chipboard sheets. And have some Dial filler, Mod Podge and Gorilla Wood PVA.
Plenty of materials and options for making some bases.
Thanks for another great video, Mel.
great tutorial Mel, new studio is looking and sounding great.
Great stuff Mel!! Very helpful suggestions!
Love this video! I'm making jungle pieces for my Catachan game board and these instructions are perfect!
what i reccomend is to make a large board the size of a standard wh40k table, and paint it brown, spread pva on it, put herbs on it and then paint it brown again. then watch mel's jungle scatter videos. they're great.
great tutorial thanks so much, excited to try out some of these bases
Hiya Mel , been following you for years, You've come a long ways mate. Back I when I started following you you where working on misses kitchen table and now you got your own workshop....awesome!
It's been a hell of a journey mate
I got great results and pretty realistic texture with simple polystyrene, coated with paper mache and DIY structure paste from wood glue and baking soda or fine sand. did it with 2cm polystyrene which got very hard but I can imagine it with thinner material.
Hey Mel, look at you being all professional, in focus, great video quality, perfect sound, and of course great content. Well done my friend, you are making it easier for us to learn and will no doubt boost the subscriber numbers. Keep up the good work and many thanks as always.....
We're getting there buddy!
Thank you, exactly what I needed
I wish I knew the double cardboard trick when I started out terrainbuilding!
hey mel great vid love the pvc board but they are easier to static charge watch in the cold they attract static and some times a charge zap. not bad but if you sand it it starts to charge the dust try it and see... but it is great material. to use cant wait for the next one..
There are a few relatively cheap other options as well. Places like the Woodcrafter or similar have a lot of precut, bulk buy wooden shapes that work well. I've used them for terrain bases, and they tend to be thin enough that you don't really need to bevel it either.
Double cardboard for the win. Thank you!
Great share Mel
Another option is to use tablemats - melamine / cork backed. Very rigid and strong. I get mine from charity shops, very cheap
aja! this video solves my problem with terrain bases. ;) , youre great buddy!
Here to help bud
Yay! Woke up this morning to yer smiling face and a brand new tutorial in your brand new studio. And a long time coming too, right? Good solid vid on bases. Congtats on the studio, I see you're starting from the ground up... literally. (yeah, I had to make a pun to celebrate) ;-)
Took me a while but I'm back in the swing of things mate
I just started getting back into modeling latley, but i have a lack of materials and tools so Iv'e found your vid's very helpful, ive also found some pretty thrifty ways to get started I thought i would share.
Im making 5 bases atm using old Cd's for rigidity, on top each is 2 layers of desending cardboard, the type in your vid.
So to blend these layers in i have no filler atm, so what i did was mix pva glue with talc, (flour would work also) and kinda made my own filler, it works quite well, setting solid.
I went in my ally and found some old red slate, I broke these up inside a newspaper with a hammer and this gave me a gritty flock, some powder and increasing to little rock sizes with everything in between "forget what you call this". I sprinkled some of this right onto my plaster before it set for texture.
for grass flock I collected a tub of various dark green leaves from my jungle, sorry I mean garden, and i nuked them in the microwave for about 3 mins untill they were totaly crisp. Using whole peices of the red slate as a pestle and mortar, I ground it up and got a great flock. (I have some shop bought flock here, and im seriously prefering my own.)
Finaly, I used your tutorial for clump foilige, but i used old bath sponges, and i found the older the sponge the better it works, but needles to say the clump folige looks and works a treat.
Then i painted them all brown and they look great, im not sure what i plan to put on them, I think i will revist your tree making tutorial. But i will take some pics and show them later before i do.
Sorry such big post. intrested to see what you think. To do these was time consuming but cost nothing apart from few mins microwave power and some pva glue. The Cd's will not be missed, one of them was called "TED" with Mark whalberg.
Awesome sauce mate on everything but the TED comment, I loved that film! :-D
Just so everyone knows, when he says that MDF is 'noxious', that's because it's made with (and always giving off) formaldehyde. Formaldehyde is a known carcinagine and manufacturers are required by law in many places to wear respirators while cutting it.
If you want something as strong and heavy as MDF without the toxic chemicals, try using Masonite (hardboard). It's a similar material, but made without any added chemicals. Just be sure to seal it good to keep it from breaking down with age.
I've pretty much swtiched to epvc now mate
Is Masonite the same is cake board?
Basically, except it doesn't come with the foil coating, and is available in larger but thinner sheets. Masonite is very similar as MDF, but isn't produced using Formaldehyde, or any additional chemicals. It's effectively steam-pressed wood pulp, using the wood's own natural bonding agents to hold it together. This is why one side is usually rough textured, because it's pressed onto a screen to force out the moisture. If you're using Masonite to build something like a building, you may want to spackle the rough side to cover up the texture, but if you're using it for your bases, you can either simply use it rough side down, or use the rough side to help any filler you may be adding to the base to grip better.
Again, the main reason I recommend Masonite over MDF is that it's much safer to work with, as dust from cutting Masonite poses no health risk. The only down side to Masonite is that it will degrade faster than MDF when exposed to the elements. While this shouldn't be a big concern when using it for scenery bases, I'd recommend giving it a good sealing coat with some watered down PVA glue to strengthen the edges a bit, especially if you're using very thin sheets or your base has some sharp edges.
I've done research on Masonite and MDF, and it looks like Masonite is exactly what I'm looking for. I just want to be sure if I get used cake boards that it's Masonite and not MDF or anything else hazardous like that.
Yes, cake boards should be Masonite (sometimes generically called 'hardboard'), only a bit thicker to hold more weight and usually with a foil coating so the wood doesn't absorb any moisture from the cake. I don't believe it's legal to use MDF for cake boards because, as mentioned before, MDF gives off formaldehyde. Be careful, though, as some really cheap cake boards may simply be extremely thick cardboard, so double check before you buy a bunch only to find out once you get the foil off that it's not what you were expecting.
Still, unless you get the cake boards dirt cheap, or just need them that thick, I'd check your local hardware or home improvement store first. You can usually get sheets of Masonite much larger and at a cheaper price per square foot than it would cost to buy cake boards individually. Most of the larger home improvement stores will cut down larger sheets to a more convenient size at no cost, which is handy if you don't have a way to get large sheets home.
But considering you're looking to get used cake boards, I'm guessing you found a way to get them for free from a bakery. In which case, don't think you can beat that.
making tree armatures and ran out of plasticard for bases. so I used the comic backing boards with the shiny side up. works brilliantly (so far)
I always repack when I get comic books bagged and boarded, because I don't know about the quality of the material used. So that occured to me as well to recycle the old backing boards. It does work, but it's very absorbent, like it should be to secure your collection. And it's quite thin cardboard, you will have to layer it for almost everything. It's not a problem to pva the layers if you put some books on it against warping. I also used the pva to seal before painting. If you're ok with that, you have nice material that you can cut with your scissors. As I can use it for other things, I prefer other materials for my basing that are easier to handle for me. The backing boards end up for notes and sketches first, sometimes a color check, then I either use it cut in little pieces to detail stuff or prime it to paint on it. Sometimes it also works as a stand in for spatulas, for masking spray painting or I waggle it to decrease drying time. :D
As long as you don't go mental with the PVA you can still glue your grit and seal with watered down PVA in the foam board I've done it and have had now issues with warping
Nice I'm going to try the card board for cheap modular tiles. I want to do "spacehulk" type games
I use hardboard with foam board on top to make bases. spot glue then keep it under weight till dry.
if you can get hold of it, double layer corrugated cardboard saves time. I've used cardboard to make some hills as foam is hard to come by for me.
Ah, the corrugated cardboard, just like back in the day, just the cans and straws still missing. I did exactly that, but instead a ready mixed filler I used cheap clear gel type all purpose adhesives mixed with sand. Even using brand stuff like Uhu it's not that expensive and it doesn't warp much if it's viscous enough before it's put on.
As said before, I like to pick up offcuts of Masonite from the hardware store, that's sheets of A1 size or so for a Euro. Advantage is it's really durable on one side and it has a textured flipside that looks ok when painted, but it also takes all stuff you want to glue to it. Tiles/bases made of 3mm Masonite usually don't warp at all. It's thick enough to drill holes for poles and stuff. With a little force it's possible to bevel the edge with a knife. To me it's perfect.
You can find Masonite or almost similar materials used as the back of speaker cabinets, shelves and cupboards, so with a little verve you might get enough free stuff to finish a project or ten.
Looking for materials to substitute canvas for my painting I went through different types of cardboard like Finnboard or screen printing board and out of those materials, I'd suggest to consider the ordinary grey millboard for basing as well. I got A4 sheets, 1.5mm thick, for 30 Cents each and it doesn't warp much painting on it with acrylics or rattle cans after a primer. When dry it got back into shape so far and as it's available in thicker sheets, I'm sure these will do even better.
Speaking of spraypaint, you remember me recommending KAPAline foamboard, Mel? It's the one with the sturdy white cardboard layers you can just peel off if you want. Now, I did a test with spraypaint on different foamboards with a paint I knew melts Styrodur etc. and guess what, I could juice the KAPAline as I wanted, it would not melt! That's brilliant stuff at the same price our local craft store charges for the worst foamboard I know (that also melted almost completely during the test). The KAPAline literally works around all doubts I had about foamboard before.
Get's better. I have another foamboard that I bought under the name Foam-X and it's not exactly as good as the KAPAline, but almost, including peeling, carving and spraying - at about 40% less in price.
thanks for all the info matey
Cross ply cardboard :) amazing
For some pieces could you not use old CDs? I use them a lot for scatter terrain.
Pipedog42 that a great idea!
eBay - you can buy MDF boards for pretty much any size you could need e.g. five 6" x 8" MDF boards for £7.15. Perfect for scatter terrain and people like me that like to have things line up :D
Hi Mel, great to see you crackin' on in the new studio, the video looks great! Quick question about foamboard: I made a base of foamboard and textured it with pva and grit like a noob, and now it's warped up. Is there anything I can do to fix the warping? Cheers
paint pva on the underside, it'll warp back straight mate
TheTerrainTutor is Pva just your average white flue that you use in grade school?
As someone without access to power tools I found this video very useful, thanks! Just wondering how rigid the EPVC is? I'm looking to make some regiment bases for my Kings of War models and I've been looking for a base material that is rigid enough to hold them (some will be pewter) and won't warp when I build some terrain atop it.
6mm will be fine mate
I really appreciate these videos - thank you. Just one question. The final option you show (epvc ?) looks very useful. What thickness would you recommend for basing up terrain pieces which are approx mouse mat size ? I've used Plasticard before (2mm thick) and found this to be very warp resistant. However, a quick look on the net shows that pvc is cheaper. Thanks again.
Anything larger than 4x4inchs, use 6mm EPVC mate
I get cork pan coasters from Action for basing circular stuff. they are 1 euro 50 for 3 pieces with a diameter of 25 cm.
And what do Printers use the EPVC for?
printing signs on mate
I like your sword on the wall.
Few questions about the EPVC: where did you get it, what types of stores usually have sheets of it, and on a related note, is there anything it's used for besides signage that is commonplace? I've always wanted to try working with it but I have never known where to find it except the super super high pricey stuff from specialty model train manufacturers and stores. Can you find sheets of it at like Home Depot or something? (I guess the equivalent for you Brits would be B&Q.) I have used yard sale signs in the past for plasticard-esque sheeting, but it seems much too thin for basing purposes and doesn't seem to compare thickness-wise to what you are using in this video.
Ebay is good but look for sign printers as they always have cheap/free offcuts mate
Mel, what are the specific sizes to your bases. Hedges and walls etc.
6 to 8 inch mate
Really enjoying your tutorials, as I have four big games coming up in the States (Chicago IL area) in Mar/Apr 2017. I really love the idea of cardboard - with holidays coming and all those Amazon boxes! But you said that applying watered PVA to those bases, even after applying filler, would warp the bases. I would need to put some grass on these bases, any ideas to how to make the PVA work? More filler on top? Gloss brush varnish, then matt brush varnish, then PVA over that?
spray adhesive mate ;-)
Will give it a try. Also going to try a suggestion elsewhere to paint using latex paint, then flock while the paint is wet, then lightly mist the flock with PVA. Will let you know how it turns out! DBA/HOTT cardboard hills coming up!
Michael S
mix a little pva in with the paint, don't mist until paint dry or you'll get mud mate
That's the plan. I want painted mud, not real mud! :D Thanks!
Great video! Here is a translation into American... I am thinking that the Diall "ready to use filler" translates to DAP nail hole filler or any ready-mix spackle (or maybe just any self-leveling joint compound); you can get the cake board on Amazon for $5.35 for six 10" x 14" or $5.41 for six 13" x 19" sheets; foam board I'm thinking translates into poster board; expanded PVC is also available at Amazon but it is a bit pricey - 33 bucks for a 2' x 4' piece 1/4” thick. Does this track?
Thanks for the translation mate
What about Hardboard ?It is dirt cheap, about £6 for a 8 by 4 sheet and nearly as tough as MDFIt is only 3mm thick so cannot be used for large bases but on the sizes you showed it has to be a great optionIan.
Love your videos, Mel - but where do you buy the epvc?
+Christer Rettrup free scraps from sign printers mate
Whooooosssssss...time travel, but anyways...Mel you recon that filler would work as a texture material for some middle east kinda medieval buildings, like those... say... Crusades era? and if not what would you suggest as a texture material for walls and buildings of that medieval period on the middle east kinda buildings and walls? Cheers!
Yeah, works a treat bud
I've used 2mm plasticard. I've used thinner but it warped. Only problem with plasticard though is it's a pain to bevel, in used a Dremel.
Have you tried heavy course sandpaper, works a treat for me mate
TheTerrainTutor Thanks for the tip. I watched your terrain lab video on PVC foamboard and that stuff looks awesome. 👍
would you be able to use air dry clay instead of filler?
couple of things, the white epvc. what did you glue it together with and how hard was it to bevel? it look really tuff stuff and a bit dangerous to cut with a knife.
also what about cork tiles?
It's not glued together, it's a single piece mate. cork's good but I didn't have any :-)
very interesting alternative but ill stick to the power tools. ☺
Needing to buy a hot melt glue gun, which one should I go for? I'm going to be working with foam, plastic, MDF and card.
I use a black and decker one mate
Hey Mel I have a question, I,m doing an HO scale diorama and was wondering what would be the best way to attach the people to the base? have not do this before, as always great vid and looking forward to more.
Drill and pin...rather simple to do.
I'd just use gel superlue mate
Thanks Mel.
Is it possible to take some foamboard and apply some filler/Spackle onto it, and then apply PVA along with grit or flocking after the filler dries? Instead of adding texture by stippling the filler?
I wouldn't, pva's a warper mate
Thanks. I wanted to apply grit and flock to my board. Is there any alternative to PVA for applying flock and grit?
austin hall
yes, spray adhesive, tacky glue but pva's best
If I use foam board, and I cover it with filler, is it safe to use a rattle can of spray primer, or will the propellant get through the filler and dissolve the foam?
Personally, I wouldn't risk it mate but technically yes you could
TheTerrainTutor Thanks! I know I ask a lot of questions but your stuff is the best terrain building resource I've ever seen.
Commenting super late but is anywhere sure where to source upvc from? A cursory search just brings up foam board, as though it’s the same thing
Rather than use filler , can you use PVA mixed with paper , like a paper mache ?
I wouldn't for these, I'd wrap like crazy
sorry "wrap" what do you mean.
soz, warp
What is the yellow retractable knife you shave with called?
I have no idea mate, it's a £1 cheapo
They are retractable snap off utility knives. Duratool or Stanley are two of the makes. There are also crafty knives made in simular fashion.
That's what I thought. I already have one. Neat. Thanks
Does the cakebase warp?
no mate
welll me like ues the cigar box wood back home get fore zip hare buck or two and some boxes are good fore minis but there are stapels but good fore laters on tanks or hand holds two floor tieles give the think hefft bath room one good fore minis shiny side down but if had to that stuff good to ;;;;;]]
The cake board is a little toxic? That's a little disconcerting.
I just want some cheap bases I guess I'll use cardboard
I have found a free basing material. Yard sale signs and politician signs. after the election everyone is willing to allow me to pull signs from The Yards. neighborhood is full of them at times. Good sturdy plastic, doesn't warp, and free to boot.
Win!
What is little bit hahahaa
very interesting alternative but ill stick to the power tools. ☺