Accessories

This page will be home to the little extras and things that don't quite qualify to be considered as 'terrain projects' on their own.

Wood Pallates

I have been looking for wood coffe stir sticks for quite a while and finally found some the type I wanted in a dollar store. I've used them to make several Wood Pallates, the kind supplies are shipped on. These can be found in every type of warehouse, stacked in dumps, in alleys, near shipping doors or the outside of buildings. I plan to eventually add them to larger projects as much needed cover, though for the moment they stack well alone and show good detail for very little effort.

The stir-sticks were cut to equal lengths, glued together with 3, 3 across, then five across. I have worked in a warehouse before and it's how most pallates are built. They were painted the dirty color by being dipped in the dirty water I had used to clean a brush after applying base black coats to other projects. The shade is perfect for old wood and brought out the grain and the individual boards perfectly.


Old Wood Crates

These Old Wooden Crates were done using a very simple method I found at:

It involves using a square of foam or something else and gluing balsa wood to it. I used the same stir sticks I made the pallates from. The result looks really good but was rather time consuming. It would be better to use something sized better than individual boards to speed it up.

Industrial Signs

Some Industrial / assorted signs I collected to use in some projects. They are nicely printable.
The latest batch was sent in by Stu. Thanks for the Signs.


Barbed & Razor Wire

Barbed & Razor Wire is made from nylon window screen mesh. It is cheap, sold for about $1.00 / 1'x 3' length, and is very easy to get from any DUY / hardware store. One foot of nylon mesh makes at least 90' of miniature barbed wire.

The nylon mesh is made of hundreds of squares, like in this picture. You need to cut where the red lines are, 1/2 way between each of the intersecting bits. Afterwards you end up with a long strand with pointy bits on each side. To make this look more like barbed / razor wire twist it as you apply it to your miniature piece, making the pointy parts all go in diffrent directions.

CA (crazy glue) is best for attaching the strands as it lets you work quickly and provides a very strong bond, also you really don't need much glue when it comes to small areas / details like wire. the resulting pieces should look something like this coiled bit.

Fire!

Fire is one of the those things that adds a lot of great atmosphere to the game, as well as being handy for marking destroyed vehicles or just smokily blocking some line of sight. Most fire is made from cotton batton (cotton balls) I salvaged mine from inside a pill bottle. the most effective moody fires have smoke billowing out from a central point that is burning. To do this use your 'hot' fire colors at the BASE of the cotton, then build from them into the dark sooty smoke up top using greys, blacks, and some white spots as well.

The fire is best left to dry thouroughly before being glued to your piece with eaither PVA or CA glue. Barrels, like the one shown here, are ideal places to have a fire. Dumpsters, garbage piles, explosion templates, or anything else can also be used with fires to good effect. With larger areas, a small ammout of florist wire as a frame may be needed or useful in helping the flame and smoke keep their shape.

It is also usefull to know that watered-down or wash-like paint jobs allow the cotton to maintain it's billowy nature more than a thick painting. Thick paint bunches the cotton, acts like glue and can harden it into a shape that looks like... hard wet cotton.