Made some desert hills

[nheastvan]

So I found out from some youtube channels that you can actually make card board work for real terrain. These are made out of the tougher “double corrugated” kind and as well, I put the corrugations perpendicular to one another for each layer. They got a coating of a glue, fine sand and filler/spackle mixture and then painted to match my drop cloth. They’re actually quite tough. I figured card board would always look bad and be warped, but I was pleasantly surprised.

My Blog - Galugadesh, a colonial imagi-nation and a star system

[Mike]

Impressive, keep us up to date on how they wear over time.

[Sane Max]

very very nice!

Thare are about 50 types of cardboard, I always feel bad throwimg it away but like you always assumed I would end up with warped junk…. got a link to your tutorial?

[Paul]

You can also maybe stick bamboo skewers horizontally in the corrugation to help keep it straight.

Those are brave men knocking at our door. Let's go kill them!

[nheastvan]

 

Mike wrote:

Impressive, keep us up to date on how they wear over time.

Definitely. I’m a bit worried about them. I’m still of two minds whether I’m going to make more terrain with the double corrugated cardboard. I have a lot of it, but it’s unknown future prospects make me want to just go back to cork and foam.

Sane Max wrote:

Thare are about 50 types of cardboard, I always feel bad throwimg it away but like you always assumed I would end up with warped junk…. got a link to your tutorial?

.

I’m still unsure how they’ll last.  It could be the first time the humidity shifts, they’ll bend and all the filler grit will crack and come off.

There’s no one tutorial, but on youtube there are channels like thedmscraft and dmginfo.  I have noticed though that the guy who has been doing thedmscraft has switched to cork and foam lately.

The key seems to be hot glue rather than water based glue.  I cut the cardboard into rectangles that go in layers with perpendicular corrugations and stuck them together with hot glue.  Then I cut the shape with a box cutter knife.  Then I took hot glue and ran it along the seems and any place the corrugations were cut lengthwise (which was all over thanks to the perpendicular arrangement).

 

My Blog - Galugadesh, a colonial imagi-nation and a star system

[nheastvan]

Paul wrote:

You can also maybe stick bamboo skewers horizontally in the corrugation to help keep it straight.

That’s a very interesting idea.  If I make more I’ll give it a try.

Cork tiles are calling to me though.  They have a few major up sides (I have decade old terrain pieces that never warp and have held up to regular use) like a built in texture.  These card board hills are labour intensive compared to cork.

My Blog - Galugadesh, a colonial imagi-nation and a star system

[Angel Barracks]

I used cork tiles for hills.
I found the self adhesive ones to be great, easy to stick, no messing with glue and quite good for not warping, what little warping occurred was easy to fix by just bending the hill back into shape.

https://cromsanvil.co.uk/

[nheastvan]

In the end cork wins out. It’s just so reliable. I can get the tiles at the dollar store along with different thicknesses in the form of trivets and other kitchen related cork pieces. I’m probably going to give these hills to a couple 12-13 year olds who started playing miniature games at our local monthly club day. We’ll see how they stand up to their rough treatment 😀

My Blog - Galugadesh, a colonial imagi-nation and a star system

[Author]

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