How to recycle scratched CD/DVD's into useful terrain : Tutorial

Posted by porkuslime on 15. September 2010 09:56

Here is a wonderful way to make some useful scenery from junk/trash. First.. you need a supply of CD's. I work in a computer facility and as a result, we throw out a LOT of CDs. However, you can also ask your local Video Store for any that they might be discarding, or maybe use that Twilight DVD you don't want in the house. However you go about it, you will need a couple CDs.

Next item on the list, for this tutorial, is Pine Bark Mulch. Seriously. There is a local landscaping/mulch company in my neighborhood. I went in and asked them if I could to scavenge opened bags of Pine Bark Mulch for large-ish chunks. They have ripped bags and just sweep the lot and throw away the spilled stuff, so they were quite happy to let me take what I needed from their lot. I took a plastic bag, and was able to fill it within 5 minutes.

 Next, you will need to make sure the Pine chunks are dry. Pine retains moisture, so leave the bark in a dry cool area for 3-6 days. I left them for a week, in the basement.

 Once those 2 elements are acquired, and the bark is dry.. here is what you are going to need.

CDs

Pine Bark Mulch chunks

X-acto knife

2 Paint brushes you don't care about (one big, one little)

Craft paint (in this case, gray and brown)

static grass flock

PVC glue - watered down

Super Glue

Start by deciding how you want to lay the bark down. I did a couple of styles, one being a stack, and the other taking one bark bit and using the Xacto to shave a flat area on one end, so that the bark would look like it was sticking out of the ground. 

When done, I glued it with super glue to the CD, and since there is a hole in the center of every CD, I had to put another smaller chunk covering that hole. 

Using Super Glue, this was dry within 10 minutes. 

and

A quick hit with Black Primer, and we get..

Then, taking the larger of our two brushes and doing a heavy gray drybrush technique on the bark with the craft paint..




and.. the stacked bark base..

Wash the brush, get out the brown paint.. wait 5 minutes for the gray to dry (In general, by the time I was done with the 3rd base drybrush step, the 1st base was ready for the brown paint). Using more paint on the brush, do a heavy drybrush/light base coat paint job on the CD. If some paint gets on the gray, it is not a big deal, it looks a bit more natural if the rock is not totally gray.The brown I used was streaky over the black primer, but it looked pretty good for a rocky area like that.

and...

Switching paintbrushes to the smaller size, take the watered down white glue and paint it into the crevices between the bark chunks, and around the base of the bark. Immediately sprinkle/dump your flocking onto the glue, count to 10, and dump the excess flock onto a pie plate or something, for reuse with the next base. Once again, neatness is not neccessary, as it will look fine if you get some ground cover onto the rocks.

After the "trouble areas" are flocked, you can go back and expand your ground coverage to make it look however you want it.  I left some areas brown to make the area look "muddy" but.. that is personal preference.

So, these 3 bases that I did took me an hour. That includes time for paint to dry AND photos, but the white watered down glue holding the flock down did take overnight to completely dry. My total outlay for this project was less than $5 (but I did have the glue on hand and didn't buy it). I now have 8 of these bases, plus enough Pine Bark to make another 4-5.

In addition to the rocky outcropping, I have also done several CD bases using GW's current building walls and ruins.. 

Trees on the Cheap, Part III

Posted by gbprime on 19. June 2009 01:09

You know, it really doesn't take this long to make trees.  Not in total anyway.  But recall that I'm a 40k gamer with 3 small kids and a 60 hour a week job.  Trees don't take this much time, life does.  =)  Anyway, on with part 3.

This time around, we're skipping over painting and basing the trees (we'll come back to that later), and are instead looking at cheap scenery bases to put all my cheap trees on.  Recall that I put a rare earth magnet in the base of each of the large trees?  Well that's because I'm basing them on steel terrain bases.  Really CHEAP steel, in the form of a used whiteboard that a friend got out of a dumpster for me.

You can see that I've marked the whiteboard up with a sharpie and laid out the shapes of the terrain bases before I make the first cut.  Metal this thin can be cut with a hand saw, tin snips, or a jig saw.  I prefer a jig saw, partly because I already own one and because it's much faster and neater.

The back of the whiteboard is darker and has a thin layer of rubber.  That means this is the side that things will stick to better and will cover in one coat.  (The white might have to be painted first, and the paint might not stick.)  For this portion, get yourself some PVA glue, a disposable paintbrush, and some box lids.  Don't forget to cover your workspace in paper, as this is gonna be messy!

Use the brush to coat the base in glue.  Make sure you lay the glue on thick, that there are no gaps, and that it goes all the way to the edge.  This may be old news to some of you modellers out there, but it bears repeating.  Your flock and gravel won't stick well if the glue is too thin, and your terrain will start going bald early in life.  Nobody wants that.  =)

I'm using two kinds of material on these bases; brown sand and green flock.  The heavier of the two should go on first.  Pour the sand out in a pattern on the base, and be generous with it.  You'll end up with a mound of extra sand that isn't stuck down, and that's fine.  You can quickly flip the base over and catch the excess in the box lid to be reused.

Now on to the other box lid to pour the lighter green flock over it.  Again, heap it on.  If you have enough, you can even swish the terrain base around in the box to cover it more easily.  Then turn the base on it's edge and shake and tap the excess off into the box lid.

Voila.  18 terrain bases.  Spray them with acryllic sealer once the glue is dry to extend their lifespan under your miniatures' feet.

Note that the bases on the left look different than the ones on the right.  One base was a failed experiment in static grass, and I switched to using finer flock.  But the difference in shading on the rest is the glue.  The ones on the left were done using PVA glue, and there was enough extra stickiness to trap some green flock in amongst the sand.  The ones on the right were after I ran out of PVA glue and switched to a spray adhesive instead.  It makes for a thinner layer of stickiness, and there's no extra to trap the second color of flock.  I think I prefer the PVA glue ones better.

Stay tuned for Part IV, where I finally get around to painting all these dang trees.  =P

Trees on the Cheap, Part II

Posted by gbprime on 20. May 2009 13:21

Okay, here's the down and dirty of it.  For those of you tuning in late, the goal here is to make 18 woods sections complete with flocked bases, 36 trees and 36 bushes... all for 39 $US.  Today I cover the construction of the trees themselves.

Start by drilling 6 small holes in a GW round base, cutting 3 lengths of floral wire, and pulling 3 sprigs of greenery off the bunch you grabbed at a discount craft store.  Take care to leave a section on the underside of the round base large enough to hold one of the magnets.  (More on that later.)

Use floral tape to bind the 3 sprigs into a bunch as shown, and loop the 3 wires through the GW round base like so.  The wires will hold the tree  firmly onto the base so that even rough handling and ill placed tanks cannot damage the tree.

Place the bundle of greenery on the base and wind the three wires around it.  I find that making one of the wires go the opposite direction from the other two adds stability to your tree, as well as forcing the smaller branches out and away from each other.  Finish the top of the tree off by wrapping 1 wire around each of the sprigs of greenery, so that you get 3 large branches at the top of the tree going out in different directions.

Now take a bit of floral tape and wrap the tree trunk.  It'll take a little practice to get the tape to go around the branches, but this too helps spread them out to make it look more tree-ish.

Tear off a bit of floral clay and cover the tree trunk.  You can leave this step off if you're pressed for time or otherwise like the look of the floral tape tree trunk, but the clay allows you to texture the trunk a bit and allows you to create "roots" to cover up the wire and the slot in the GW round base.  Give it a few days to dry so it's not sticky before you work with it further.  It will never be as hard as sculpy or Green Stuff miniature clay, but it's a heck of a lot cheaper.

Fill the bottom of the GW round base (or the large half of the bottom if it has a slot bisecting it like mine) with more clay.  Be sure to mush it in there real well, so that it flows around the wire in the base.  once it dries, the wire will hold the clay in place.  (if you find this isn't the case and your clay keeps coming out... superglue it.)  BEFORE it dries, make an indent in the clay for your rare earth magnet, then glue the magnet in place once the clay is hardened.

Behold, one tree.  And a very excited Kroot Mercenary for scale comparison.

Coming up in Part III... painting and flocking trees.

Trees on the Cheap - Part I

Posted by gbprime on 15. May 2009 14:46

For the upcoming RTT at Origins, one of my tasks is coming up with enough woods sections to equip three 4x6 tables.  Since we have no trees, I need to make or buy them.  I could buy them, but each terrain base of trees would cost roughly 8 bucks if I use GW trees or a decent competitor, and that doesn't count the cost of prepping the base itself.  Since I need roughly 18 sections of woods, that's over 130 $US... and that's unacceptable.

No, for this project, I'll be doing 18 woods sections, including 36 trees and 36 bushes, for a total cost of 39 $US.

Here's what we need for the project.

 - 1 pack GW Round bases (37 count) - $8
 - 1 spool Floral Wire - $2
 - 2 spools Floral Tape - $3
 - 2 spools Floral Clay - $4
 - 2 bunches of small-leaf fake greenery, on sale 50% off - $6
 - 2 buckets modelling flock, on sale 50% off - $7
 - 1 pack 40 rare earth magnets - $5
 - 1 tube PVA glue - $4
 - assorted scrap sheet metal - free

The idea is that we cut the sheet metal and cover it in flock to provide the base of the terrain.  Then I build up trees and shrubs on the round bases, and put a magnet on the bottom of the taller trees so they won't fall over.

Stay tuned for Part 2, the basic assembly.

40K Space Hulk -- Cannon Chamber

Posted by Ranillon on 12. April 2009 20:25

Here is my latest room for 40K Space Hulk -- the Cannon Chamber.  The idea is that this is where one of the guns in the hulk is located.