Saturday, November 17, 2012

The Workbench #6 - Alien Crystal Terrain




These are what happen when you have some spare parts and a little milliput.

I was using some milliput to fill a few gaps in a project. As usual, it worked fine. Also as usual, I had some left over. And you can't unmix milliput. So it was either find something to do with it or throw it out.

This time, I had a plan. Best of all, it would use stuff I had laying around from previous and shelved projects.


Materials:

Flat wood craft pieces with the edges cut into irregular shapes. Used as bases.

Cocktail stirrers. I used plastic cutters to snip off angled pieces. This resulted in rather sharp edges, so I gave them a light sanding. Used as the "alien crystals".

Milliput. Used to mount the plastic stirrer pieces.

Sand. Basing material.

Glue. I used tacky glue, but any PVA glue will do.


Assembly:

Step 1: Push a small blob of milliput down on the wood base.

Step 2: Push cocktail stirrer pieces into the milliput.

Step 3: Wait for the milliput to cure.


Basing:

Step 1: Apply watered down PVA glue to the base and over the milliput. Be careful not to get any on the cocktail stirrer pieces.

Step 2: Cover the glued areas with sand. Wait until the glue is dry.

Step 3: Apply a watered down mix of brown craft paint and PVA glue over the sand. This colors and further fixes the sand in place. Wait until dry.

Step 4: Drybrush some linen craft paint over the sand.


Results:

These will look good on a variety of game boards. They could be alien crystals on a newly explored world or magic crystals in a cavern deep underground. I'll have to keep a few bases and cut stirrer pieces around for the next time I have a little leftover milliput.