Home -> Projects -> Rocks and Water -> Alien TerrainAlien Terrain
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Craig Hardt plays in a casual tennis league in the spring and
summer, and each year accumulates a lot of old tennis balls. He
knew there had to be an application in terrain building and after
staring at them long enough came up with this project. In this
case Craig has used them in an ash wastes style but the project
could easily be adapted for Tyranid "eggs" or
many other spherical objects.
Over to Craig for the instructions. Beautiful
photographs by the way, Craig.
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Materials
Tools
- plastic spoon
- hobby knife
- paint brushes
- hot glue gun
- sand paper
Method
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wanted the finished product
to look like the "pods" had been partially uncovered and
not just some tennis balls stuck onto a base. I cut two of the
tennis balls apart with my hobby knife to get 4 rough halves and
cut a simple rough opening into one side of the third ball. |
These were then hot glued to the masonite base with some scraps of
foam to provide extra support and to give miniatures some higher ground
to stand on. In retrospect I would have based two or three of the ball
halves individually to provide flexibility when placing them on the
gaming table.
Applying the Filler
| One major task when using tennis
balls is to hide the ugly seam that runs around it. The fuzzy,
absorbent surface of a tennis ball looked like an excellent
recipient for filler and I set about using filler to try to cover
the seams. First I mixed the filler with PVA glue to get about a
10:1 filler to PVA ratio. The end result is a nice smooth, sticky
mixture. This was applied to all the tennis balls and the inside
of the open "pod" as a base coat and left to dry. |
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With layer one dry all of the
"fuzziness" of the tennis balls was now a prickly, hard
surface and the seam was still showing. Time for layer two. I
mixed up a batch of the filler/PVA and literally slopped on a
thick layer of the mix with a plastic spoon. Don't mix too much
PVA glue into the filler or it will be too thin. |
| After rough shaping the wet
filler with the spoon I dipped a soft bristled brush into some
water and gently began smoothing the surface of the wet filler.
Depending on how wet your filler is more/less water will be needed
in the brush. As you lightly move the brush over the surface clean
the brush with water as filler accumulates on it. Lumps of filler
on the brush will make smoothing the surface very difficult. |
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The goal is not to get a perfectly smooth finish,
just a mostly smooth "organic" looking effect without
any big peaks/valleys. Depending on your brush technique different
textures can be achieved. Have fun with it and experiment (if you
make a mistake just add more filler!) Once this second layer was
dry I lightly sanded the filler for an even smoother finish. |
That's it for the tennis ball portion of the project. The only thing
left to do was to apply a layer of sand to the base and move on to the
painting.
Painting
After brushing on a black base coat I began dry
brushing on the final colours. Silver for the "pods" and
then shades of grey for the ground and rocks.
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I also used some brown, orange and yellow wash to
created some rusted areas. A final touch of flocking was added for
moss/weeds and after a spray of matte sealant the project was
done. |
Other Possibilities
After finishing this project I thought of a few other ideas for
tennis balls such as adding spikes for alien plants, giant eggs,
bio-drop pods or even as small bunkers. Individually based they could be
arranged on the table into strange boulder fields or massed together on
a large base for a unique hill or cliff face. Have fun!
