Run Through the Jungle: Making Jungle Scatter Terrain

 

 

 

 So I've alluded to this a few times in previous blogposts, but despite how much everyone else seems to complement them, I'm very unsatisfied with the first set of jungle scatter terrain I made. I made them on the cheap, I didn't paint the trees to look less plasticy, and I based everything on thick cardboard, I think they're horrendous and it's been a goal of mine to remake them, so here's a tutorial on how I should've done it the first time.

First, I grabbed terrain bases. My original bases were made out of 2 layers of cardboard glued together. It was way too thick for a base (8-10mm), it warped easily, and just looked awful. This time I'll be using 3mm MDF, but you can use things like plasticard, basswood, EPVC sheets, etc. 

 

To make them transition a bit more smoothly into the game mat, I'm going to bevel down the edges a bit , then I'm going to hit them with brown spray paint.

 

 

Next I'm gonna need a lotta flocka. 

 

The first image is my fine jungle foliage, this was made by mixing equal parts fine foam flock, coarse foam flock, 2mm static grass, a brown tone herb (Oregano), a green tone herb (Parsely), and 3 shades of green sawdust flock.

The second image is my coarse jungle foliage. I made it by mixing craft moss, craft lichen, and 3 shades of clump foliage into a blender.

You don't need to use as much stuff as I did for these recipes, but the variation in texture and color will make things look much better. So if you don’t wanna go all out like I did, I still advise at least mixing 2-3 things instead of using just 1. That's a mistake I made in my first attempt at making jungle scatter, and it really looks worse for it.

Next, I hit the MDF bases with a 50/50 water/PVA solution, and cover them in my fine foliage mix. You'll notice that in the above picture, I also drilled 1/8in holes into the base, I'll explain why in a moment.

Next, I gather the plants. I just went on amazon and ebay and bought aquarium plants, topiary balls, foliage squares, miniature palm trees, and I had a couple of normal trees left from previous projects.

Topiary balls are very cheap and you can pull the foliage out from the ball frame very easily, so those were my main source of plants/ferns.

The palm trees were cartoonishly bright, so I painted them a while back. I'd highly recommend painting the palm trees, the plastic ones you find online stand out a lot with how fake and plastic-y looking they are. 

Alright, remember those holes I drilled into the base that I mentioned a while back? You'll notice in the above pictures that some of the trees and plants have an extended section that allows them to be plugged into a hole. Drilling the holes will allow me to stab the plants into the base when I glue them, then I just snip off the excess. This gives them a bit more stability and makes them adhere to the base a bit better.

I then grabbed those various plastic plant materials, and glued them onto the bases using super glue. I used hot glue at first but found that hot glue was not strong enough and a lot of the trees would just pull right off.

Then I take my coarse foliage mix, some 50/50 water/PVA, and glue them onto bits of the base, on top of the fine foliage mix, but not covering it entirely. Use them to hide the transition from tree/plant to ground, it'll help things blend a bit better.

Last steps would be to just seal this all down with 1-2 coats of a 20/80 PVA/water mix, glue on some tufts, and then hit the plastic plants with a wash to tone down their colors a bit more. 

And we're finished! Rather easy. The longest part is just waiting for the watered down PVA glue to dry so you can move onto the next step.

I wrote this for Nick on his request and I hope you find it useful, if you have any questions you know where to find me! Until next time folks!