Rocky Scatter Terrain

Over the past few weeks I have been tinkering with some scatter terrain, just a short session here and there. I want to build some hills, but I thought I would get some practise making simpler scatter terrain to begin with. The main component of these pieces is tree bark, which I collected from a nearby forest. When trees are felled there are quite often chunks of bark nearby. Note that I do not rip bark from living trees, that would be a nasty trick even a horrid goblin would think twice about.

The bases for the terrain varies. The standing stones are based on foamboard, while the random rock piles are based on thick card. I tried to chamfer the edges a little, just using a standard craft knife. The bark was cut with a craft (jeweller) saw and I glued them on with pva glue. Then I left them for a few days to ensure the joins were (ahem) rock solid.

The bark pieces were primed white and then painted to look like rocks. I used an emulsion tester pot as the base grey, then browns, ochres and a black wash. Then I added shadows and highlights using green grey and beige glazes. Finally, I added some green tinges to represent mossy growth.

The ground was made from a mix of fine sand, tile grout and pva glue. Brown tile grout, mixed with sand makes a fairly natural looking sandy earth colour. Mixed up to a paste consistency, it's possible to apply it with little undulations, for a more natural look. When it dries, the tile grout makes it a very solid base. It's possible to use it like this, unpainted, though I did add a few washes around the stones and rocks for a little variation in ground tones.

The final step was to add vegetation. I spread thinned pva on to the ground and sprinkled on some scatter, adding darker and lighter colours to provide a little texture. I also used some scrub/tree foliage, which you can buy from rail model suppliers or online. Again, I just scattered it at random. All the vegetation was sealed with wet water (a half and half mix of screen wash and water) and very dilute pva - about 3:1 water:pva. When it's fully dried, it gives a very durable finish, with little or no shedding of scatter materials. The final step was to add a few patches of static grass and tufts.

Scattered on to my playing mat, the terrain does look pretty convincing. But don't take my word for it! We asked a local mountain dweller and rock expert for his opinion.

"Aye, it's definitely a rock"