Terrain Boards in Hell Back to Main Hellscape Page

The main material used on these boards is wood putty. It is a flexible, lightweight and durable material that can develop nice textures. It goes on easy, dries quickly, and paints without effort.

This is an image of my "test" board. I used a small section of hardboard to try the method out first. I found that I could flex the board without damaging the texture or paint, and it was a simple process. I probably should have learned to make fewer cracks, but I didn't, and the real boards took a lot longer than I planned.

Hardboard cut into 2' x 2' pieces. I chose this size to make them easily transportable. I would not make them smaller, though 2' X 4' or 4' X 4's would work as well.

Wood Putty. I used Elmers Wood Filler. You can buy a 16oz can for $4, or a 32oz can for less than $6. You may have to look around for the 32oz cans. I found them at Home Depot and Lowes, but not always in stock.

Putty knife. There are lots of them. I chose a cheap one.

Scraper. This is used to do the crevasses. Lots of things could work, but I found a dental tool with a scoop on one end. The back end of a paint brush works pretty well too. You will want a paper towel to clean the tool as it picks up wood putty.

This is very straight forward. A larger putty knife will let you put more down at once. You want no more than a 3/8" layer. I don't know how it will dry if you make a really thick layer, but I suspect it will crack. You can let one layer dry and add a second on top of it if you need more depth.

On the edges, simply scrape the putty knife downward along the edge. Smooth the putty from the top, and when you;ve got the whole edge done, give it a scrape all the way down the side to remove any material projecting over the side. Material left on the side will keep adjacent boards from meshing well when the boards dry.

You don't want to have more than 10 minutes between starting to apply the layer and starting to cut the crevasses, so I only did a 2' X 1' section at a time. However, I cut WAY to many crevasses in the board. If you are doing fewer, and have a big putty knife, there is no reason not to do a 2' x 2' area at once.

Make sure to go over the putty to add some texture with the putty knife if there are wide featureless areas. It will probably be pretty well textured on its own, unless you use a big putty knife and flatten large areas at once.

 Cutting the Crevasses 

I used a dental tool with a scoop on it. I simply drug the tool across the wet putty, cutting all the way down to the board underneath. When the tool had so much putty on it that it was interfering with the cuts, I wiped it off on a paper towel. Again, I put WAY too many crevasses in mine, which took forever to fill and paint. Half of this density would still look great. You've been warned…

After letting the first half of the boards dry overnight, I did the other half in the same way, and let it dry overnight.

After it was dry on both halves, I sanded it with medium grit paper. This removes little points and projections that might break off later, and gives a bit of weathering to the texture. After sanding, either vacuum or blow the loose dust out of the cracks and crevasses, or else it will interfere with painting.

You could do this with spray paint if you find one you like. It still went pretty quick with a brush. I used Delta Creamcoat's Charcoal color, a craftstore paint, instead of the more expensive miniature paint. Using an enamel would probably make a more durable coat, though I haven't had any problem playing on the board.

This is very straightforward as well. Use a larger brush to make it go quickly. Pick a nice contrasting color - I used Delta Creamcoat's Iron Oxide, giving it a nice reddish glow. If you haven't drybrushed before, it is simple. Get a little paint on the brush, then brush most of it off on a piece of paper or cardboard. With what is left, lightly drag the bush over the item you are painting, and it will leave a light layer of paint on the raised textures. The wetter the brush still is, the more paint gets laid down.

You can see that the boards look pretty good with just the drybrushing. But I wanted fire.

 Making Fire - Materials

 I used "Realistic Water" from Woodlands Scenic, available in most places that sell model train stuff. You could also use most acrylic glazing media, but they tend to crack if layed on too thickly. The Realistic Water will shrink to about 1/2 of its starting thickness, but will not crack, even if it is a 2" layer to start with. A $15 bottle like this will go a long, long way.

The paints were just hobby store paints. Note that most of them dry differently than they look in the bottle. I started with a "Berry Red", which darkened massively when dried, so had to go back over it with True Red.

Get resealable containers so you can mix all of the lava you need at once and the colors will stay consistent. I used an old brush handle to stir and mix the paint with the realistic water.

The syringe came from the lab I work in, but I think you can get them in any drugstore. Or heroin clinic, though you may have to pretend to be a heroin addict to get one.

The red will be the base color, and you don't want it to be very translucent (at least I didn't). I put about 3/4 of a bottle in a container full of realistic water. The yellow you want to be much lighter, because it will go on top of the dried red and you want it to blend.

This can be a little frustrating at first, until you get used to controlling the outflow. If a glob of it to comes out, use a toothpick to drag the lava inside of the cracks as much as possible, then use a paper towel to clean up the edges. I may have mentioned, I put WAY too many cracks onto these boards, and so it took over two hours per board to fill in the cracks.

Below are images of the completely filled boards. Again, it looks good like this, but I want fire. 

This used a mix of yellow paint and realist water, with much less paint than was in the red. It was dabbed on with a brush and alternately streaked and dabbed to give fire textures. I put WAY too many cracks onto the boards, and so this took forever, about three hours per board. You don't need to do so many.

When completed, the effect is awesome. The first shot was with a flash and so really showed off the cracks between the boards. In real light, they are practically invisible. Because of the huge number of cracks (have I mentioned I put WAY too many on these boards?), there are lots of places that almost match up, and the eye really doesn't notice the board edges. If you do fewer cracks (and you should), you may want to try to line them up better when they are being cut.

The boards were sealed with three layers of Krylon Clear Coat, a wonderful spray sealer that has absolutely no color and goes on thick. It is very glossy, so I used Testors Dull Cote in two layers over the clear coat to knock the gloss off of it.

These have been very durable and transport well. However, they should not be left in a hot car if they are stacked up on each other. They will stick together a bit, and some paint will get removed. Putting waxpaper or trashbag separators between the boards prevents this.

If you make your own hellscape boards, you may want to cut specific patterns, like runes or pentagrams. Nothing needs to look natural, just believable, so have fun with it!

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