For what is probably a few years now, I’ve had the idea of creating some terrain for the various games I play. While a lot of ruined walls and buildings are high on the list, I’ve been thinking of an assortment of different plants for tabletop use too.
My work involves a wide range of artificial plants and plant related products. I’ve been collecting “bits” that would normally be thrown out that I thought I could utilise for a long time. Unfortunately, it looks like I threw some bits out when we moved house, but I’m collecting again.
I did have a bunch of pieces that required minimal work to be table ready and yesterday decided to finally see what I could do. I’ve completed 14 individual specimens.
Each of these is plastic (or rubber) and is a single piece – I haven’t had to assemble or glue the ‘plant’ itself together at all. All the round bases are 25mm plastic slotta-bases, where I’ve filled the slot and made a slightly wider (than the slot) hole in the middle. I had a whole lot of “second-hand” flocked bases that repainted would do for rough ground or desert-like terrain once repainted.
The flock on the bases had been a mix of greens. I glued a little sand for added texture, then gave them all a splotchy brush over in burnt sienna and yellow ochre. I have a ‘Nubian Flesh’ which is very thick and awkward to use on skin. (When thinned to a good painting consistency it looses a lot of its colour) I realised today that thinned it makes a great replacement for my Army Painter Quickshade Dark Tone, and it’s a much cheaper alternative. Finally a hint more yellow ochre and flesh, dry brushed on bits of the base tops.
The largest two plants have a short “stem” with a wire rod through the centre, that was trimmed short enough to stick into a prepared base. The others have had their wire removed entirely leaving the stem long enough to push into the base holes. All have been glued into place firmly.
The tall cactus with the pink-purple flower on top have a bit of stem still visible (though not in these shots) on top of the base. When I was taking photographs I realised that I should have used a bit more glue on the bottom of the plant, and pushed it all the way down onto the base, then trimmed the ‘stem’ that stuck out the bottom of the base. It’s not worth the effort to break the seal and rework them now… but in future that’s what I’d do if I make more. The smaller cacti with the red flower have two sizes – I made up three of each.
The main idea for all these is for use in Gamma World, where in addition to terrain, they could also be Green Folk (mutated plants) NPC’s or “monsters”. They will work fine in fantasy or other sci-fi games too.
The last image here shows the plants with the PC’s in my Gamma World campaign.
I really want a few more of the larger ‘spiky’ plant – I think that looks really good. It’s also time that I bought or created a proper saguaro cactus to do my wife’s PC justice. The one in the pic (on the left) was created from a garden twig. I’m sure I can do a much better job now.
Dragons of Lancasm 