Vastarian Terrain Board Part 1

 

Hello! Long time, no see. I hope this to be a multi-series post giving an insight into my terrain-making process as well as some small tutorials. (Apologies in advance for the poor quality of photos) In January, I decided to try my hand at creating a terrain board for the Wier brother's amazing Vastarian Setting. Having gone back and forth with them with some ideas, I knew that I wanted the board to have a few standard practices I use into most of my pieces at this point in my terrain making experience:

• The board would be 1m x 1m

• It would utilize my 'common building' materials philosophy, i.e., 80-90% made with material found in nature or a hardware store

• Try at least one new technique

Overall, I knew that I wanted the board to represent the entrance to a larger cathedral or place of worship while including brittle trees, a road and possibly smaller shrines of lesser cults on the planet.

With that in mind, I wanted to actually sketch out what I wanted the board to look like. Normally I rarely do this, and instead have an idea in my mind that changes and shifts. Rather than planning, I will do a rough layout with blocks of foam to identify what goes where, take a picture of it, and then get started - this time, I wanted to test a different way.

The original 'plan' on my bullet journal

As you'll see later, it went a much different direction in a lot of ways - such as it being a single piece, no shrines, etc. but hey - just more opportunities for the next board!

Like any board, I began with building the foundation - primarily 2 inch thick insulation foam from Home Depot on top of MDF. These are possibly the most expensive materials involved in the project, but well worth it. The MDF provides a solid base for the foam, and insulation foam is as versatile as it is affordable. Both of these materials are typically sold as 4 foot x 8 foot sheets in the United States. If you have a smaller car, like I do, you can ask the employees to cut the material on your behalf to fit your vehicle for ease of transport.

With a 3 foot x 3 foot MDF sheet laid out, I then cut the 2 inch foam into smaller blocks to give myself an idea of how I wanted the board to look at its 'roots'. By laying out the foam blocks in a modular fashion, this gives me space to really contemplate how to go about the future of the board. These will usually span an entire hobby session or two over several days where I will adjust blocks, place objects etc to thoroughly take my time reflecting on how I build the board.

There have been no short of times where my partner will find me in the garage where I will be standing, cradling my chin in thought with headphones in and wonder what in the world I am doing.

Given the fairly nautical theme of Vastarian, it was at this decision-stage that I chose to incorporate a gently sloping beach towards a corner and the inclusion of a semi-ruined lighthouse along its side. It is these poignant moments where I am very glad I have my contemplative planning reflections!

The layout as it stood!

The ruined lighthouse was built from the Dreadstone Blight kit, and required a great deal of work to assemble as I wanted it. Using a Dremel and 400-grit sanding blocks I smoothed the stones to better fit what I had in my head, while snipping off pieces of plastic that were not necessary. This ruined kit allowed me to create a mostly-intact tower jutting off of the face of a proposed cliff. I also took this time to assemble a corner of the cathedral from an old Cities of Death kit to get an idea of how large I wanted the interior of the cathedral to be; unfortunately the name of these kits escapes not just me but the wider internet. I had held onto them for almost a decade!

Tools of the trade. The tower as particularly aggravating to file, sand and fit together.

Using wood glue to adhere the foam blocks together, I trimmed bamboo skewers and inserted them into the foam to help keep the foundation aligned. Stacks of books, dumbbells and my workout sandbag were used to keep them in place overnight while the glue cured.

After drying, the more interesting work could begin. I started by creating the stairway that would lead to the entrance of the cathedral. I considered using individual insulation foam blocks, individual Readiboard (or Foamboard, found at the Dollar Store in the USA) foam blocks and even 3D printed stairs - though I do not like FDM printed terrain whatsoever for my own projects. Having individual blocks would lend an uneven and inconsistent appearance to the stairs, which was something I wanted to avoid with such a grand entrance.

Eventually I came to the idea of creating successive and diminishing layers of Readiboard foam with flagstones carved in by hand with pen. This allowed the stairs to be more cohesive and solid compared to building with bricks of foam while allowing the stairs to be level.

The laid out board, skewers and all. The terrain kits were 'dry-fitted' onto the board.

With the stairs complete, I thought about what would flank them to either side. I considered planting domineering statues, but could not decide which ones. I decided on using the bottom parts of the Imperial Bastion kits to form the foundation on either side; this would allow me to build up the earth to either side while giving a more militaristic and defensible appearance to the cathedral at-large. As seen in a future post, this would give me the freedom to create brickwork on top of them to provide cover for models in engagements.

From there, I planted the lighthouse on the side of the beach and then began shaping gently-sloping hills on the corners opposite of the cathedral. I had gone back and forth on whether to incorporate permanent shrines or statues on the corners, and decided against it. I wanted the board to allow for more versatility for future events I hoped to host, and using permanent terrain would make the board far too rigid to accommodate other's creativity. By sculpting these hills I hoped it would give the board some depth while still allowing different objectives or shrines to be placed by others.

Another angle of laying out the foam blocks.

The corner directly opposite of the cathedral entrance would be relatively flat, while the diagonal corner I decided would be steeper with some form of entrance to a subterranean lair - who knows where this door will lead? I really enjoy boards that connect to one another in events or campaigns. It also allowed me to use a dried root to use as a tree that I had found on a walk with my son over a year ago.

The beach slope was later bulked out with slabs of foam that I quickly hacked to an imperfect angle, knowing that I would fill in most of the gaps with other material later.

With that, the 'foundation' of the board was done! Onto filler, pavers, texture etc in the next one.

Till next time,

-Bill