12/01/2024

Happy Sunday and welcome back to Tabletop Thoughts! This past week was really busy with the Thanksgiving holiday but I did manage to sneak in a little time to complete one item on the crafting table.

I finished this homemade Cyclops skeleton terrain piece. I started with XPS foam for the base and the rocks under the hands. After Halloween, I got the plastic skeleton hands at Dollar General on clearance. I printed the Cyclop skull on my Ender 3 Pro. (You can watch me paint a Cyclop skull on YouTube here.)

I glued the skull, rock, and hands to the XPS base using Elmer’s glue. Then, I covered the base with Sculptamold to give it a more realistic look. I covered it with a Black Magic Craft ModPodge coating and let it dry. I wasn’t too happy about the height of the base so I cut it in half using my Proxxon and glued it to a foam-core piece. This change made the slope up to the skull better for placing miniatures. I redid the BMC ModPodge coating and let it dry again.

I started with a gray undercoat on all of the terrain then covered just the ground in construction sand. I let that dry overnight. I sprayed the sand with IPA then used a glue/water mixture that I dripped onto the sand to make random patches. I covered the terrain in grass flocking, shaking off the excess. I repeat this a couple of times using a different color of flocking each time to add variety to the ground cover.

After that was dry, I used the dripping glue/water mixture again and added static grass to the terrain. I don’t use an applicator for this (like Wyloch), I just drop it onto the model and tap it down a little with a finger to make sure that it sticks. Again, it sits to dry.

I dry brushed ivory onto the skull and hands of the model then I used super glue to add the grass tuffs and flowers to the terrain piece. I quick spray of matte clear coat and the piece is ready for the table.

I did record the making of this terrain piece so there will be a video soon on YouTube.

I like the piece and I could see it on a TTRPG game as a site of a battle or on a wargaming table like Age of Fantasy from One Page Rules.

Have you ever made gaming terrain pieces from Halloween items? If so, please let us know in the comments.

Keep on gaming.