Desert Terrain 1 – Hills, Dry Sand and Gibber Plains

Here is a simple procedure for creating consistent desert-style terrain suitable for any period or scale.

Step 1: Attach the overlay using your botting board and leave to dry for 24hrs (Fig 1).

fig 1.

Step 2: Liberally coat all ground surfaces (not the hill) with full strength PVA. Sprinkle a few large boulders (Cat litter) close to the cliffs (Fig 2).

fig 2.

Step 3: Liberally sprinkle the finer gravel (gibber) over the areas you want to classify as gibber plain (Fig 3). Then sprinkle a heavy coating of fine sand over all ground surfaces (Fig 4).

fig 3. fig 4.

Step 4: Use a filler to alter the hill to your liking. In this case, the wheel ruts are being filled and the road converted to flat rock (Fig 5).

fig 5.

Step 5: Once totally dry and free of excess material, the entire tile and rock inserts are painted with a Buff coloured flat acrylic (Fig 6).

fig 6.

Step 6: Once dry, flood the entire tile (and inserts) in a brown acrylic wash. Once dry, give the sand two dry brushes of Pale Yellow acrylic but use it very sparingly on the rock surfaces (Fig 7).

fig 7.

Step 7: Add your new tile to your board (Fig 8).

fig 8.

Step 8: Another 20hrs of the above and it should look something like this (Fig 9).

fig9.

Easy isn't it? Now, while you're drooling over your latest creation, take a pic and send it to me for the gallery.

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