I am very excited about Star Wars: Legion, and it has inspired me to take up some terrain building. Other than playing a little bit of Warhammer Fantasy and 40K a couple decades ago, I have no experience with the hobby aspects of miniature wargaming. This is the work of a total noob. Also, I have been building this in cooperation with my two daughters, ages 3 and 6, who are very enthusiastic helpers. If you see a few stray brushstrokes, that was probably their work... oh, let's be honest: I probably made as many mistakes as they did.

My goal is to build enough terrain to make a Tatooine (or Jedha or Jakku) table. My first project was to build some rock formations and sand dunes. I started with a spray can of insulation foam. The hardware stores near my house did not carry the pink or blue sheet foam (I live in Southern California), so I had to improvise. I emptied the can to make five pieces. After they hardened, I carved them into three rock formations and two dunes. I then spackled them (because the spray foam had some weird irregularities), sanded them, and put on a base coat of wood glue, sand, and acrylic paint. For one of the dunes, I wanted to make it into a skeleton (of a bantha perhaps), so I added rib bones made out of air-dry clay.

Next, I watered down a few different colors of paint, and I washed the rocks in browns, reds, and tans. For the dunes, I watered down some wood glue and pasted on a bunch of sand.

I added a second coat of glue and sand to the dunes, and I highlighted the rocks by dry-brushing them with a light tan color.

So, here is the result with some (sadly unpainted) Imperial Assault figures for scale:

I am pretty happy with the results, even though I can see a number of imperfections. If nothing else, it was a good learning experience and a fun weekend activity with my girls.

I have my next couple of projects lined up. I bought two small desert homes and a set of three vaporators from imperialterrain.com, and I am excited to receive them soon. I also intend to smash up a TIE fighter model as a crash-site. Then, I am looking for a good source of scatter terrain--crates, droids, etc.

As another new guy, good work. And thanks for the link to someone that sells the vaporators. Tried to piece together small parts of blocks, washer and nuts to make them and, well, cannot get the desired look. Maybe, buying them is the simple answer.

As for the spray foam, I wonder what the results would be if the foam was placed into a sized mold. Like, a solid, poster tube to help make trees? Been thinking about picking some up and messing with it to see how it works.

Excellent work!

If anyone is spraying that stuff into a mold though, I’d recommend the ‘Great Stuff’ that comes in a blue can for windows and doors, as it doesn’t expand as much.

You’re also going to want to line the tube with Saran Wrap or something - or you’re going to have a lot of trouble getting it out of a tube, never mind an intricate mold (which may be destroyed in the process.)

I’m curious too as to how it will set up without open air. You may end up with a dense, flexible, foam-like material that’s easily shapable - unlike plaster or resin.

Hope this helps!

These look amazing!

Here's a video I found that uses expanding spray foam and should answer some questions posed here.

@chemnitz Great work! The only other thing I'd try is to paint the sand to match the rocks. You & your kids did a good job, keep it up!

Thank you for the kind words. Unfortunately, the bantha skeleton is not holding up very well. My 3 year old was admiring our handiwork and accidentally broke four of the rib pieces. I have some repairs to do. Any ideas of how to make it more durable?

Hmm... Firstly glue them back together as best you can with some hot glue. Then (stay with me for a sec,) try wrapping the ribs in wet paper towel strips and coat with white glue (PVA / Elmer's glue). Does that make sense? When it dries, it'll be like a durable cast that you can paint up. You can also go as far as draping some of the wet paper towels between the ribs to simulate dried out, dessicated hide.

Here is a video from DM Scotty that sort of shows another technique you can try if you end up recreating the bantha ribs from scratch. In this case, he's making a tree. You can take what he shows you about making the trunk of the tree to fashion some ribs in a similar way.

My kids love watching his videos.

Here is an update on the second wave of my Tatooine project. I purchased a TIE/SF model (Revell 6751) to modify into a crashed TIE/LN. I removed the antenna and the structure next to the wing, and then I repainted it. I intend to break off one wing, in order to create two pieces of terrain from this one model.

I also purchased some terrain pieces from Imperial Terrain (imperialterrain.com). I would recommend buying from them--the models look nice, and I received excellent customer service. Here you can see the houses and vaporators after some white primer.

Tomorrow, my daughters and I will continue the process of turning these into pieces of terrain. I think that I now have enough pieces to fill a table, once these are all done. I will post more pictures as the project continues.

I sawed off one wing from the TIE Fighter. Then I spread out some air-dry clay about 1 cm thick, and I crashed the TIE into it in extreme slow motion. I formed the clay in a little more exaggerated manner, until it looked alright. After it dries, I will glue it onto some thin foam and paint it with paint, sand, and glue.

For the desert houses, I first painted them with a mixture of paint, sand, and watered-down wood glue. After it dried, I painted the mechanical bits with a dark gray. Then, I painted over the rest of it with a light brown. The roofs are entirely the work of my children, while I was working on the lower section. They did a good job!

I also started making a small foam rock to rest the other TIE Fighter wing against. No pictures yet.

Outstanding work! Keep it up.

I finished the highlighting and detailing of the houses. All that is left to do is to paint the doors (which I am saving for another weekend).

Here is the other wing of the TIE Fighter on its own little rock, which was made out of scraps from my first project. I think that I'll add some battle damage at some point in the future, but I haven't decided how I want to do it.

Do you have a soldering iron? If you drag it along in a line or two you can mimick blaster damage. Remember to do so in a ventilated area. Also, if you can bend/warp the wing it may give it a more authentic look to the wreckage.

Looks good though!

Dry brush those Desert houses, do a couple of coats of lighter and lighter sand colors and it will finish it great!

Great job so far. As far as scatter terrain, if you want some more 3-D printed terrain try e-Bay. If you search Imperial Assault you can find crates and terminals that are nicely done and fairly inexpensive. I know Imperial Terrain was working on scatter terrain as well.

Once again for droids try eBay as the Wizards of the Coast miniatures work well. (I have several I was using for custom skirmish objectives for Imperial Assault) You can also look on CoolStuffInc. they have a large selection of miniatures and they ship to everywhere.

I made my own scatter terrain using 3/4 inch wood blocks and wood barrels and just painted them to look like Imperial containers. Using Microsoft paint I created labels for the crates so that the lines and circle patterns were straight and lined up. I created one then copied and pasted enough to create 24 gray crates. I am working on a double blue crate as seen in the Death Star.

I am trying to get the highlights right on these houses, but I don't know what I am doing. The first time they were too subtle, but now they might be too much. Any advice? Do they look alright or should I make a third attempt?

I super new to all of this. Wanted to preface that and not misrepresent myself ...

My feeling is subtle is more. It looks/behave naturally

It is easy to screw up a paint job with dry brushing. Do a little; dry and look. Do a little; dry and look.

I may do a TINY bit more or not. Those look organic.

I think they look great as is. If you want the highlights to "read" better at a distance, you need more contrast between the base color and the highlight color. Remember, at arms length is where most of these will be viewed from, so you don't need to be overly subtle.

I touched up the houses for a third time, and I think that I am now satisfied. So, here is a look at all of my terrain so far. I am excited that I have enough to fill a table (my table is exactly 6' x 3').

My kids set up the scene. The story is that a TIE fighter crashed just outside of a small moisture farm. Both the Imperials and the Rebels send a scouting party to recover important data in the wreckage. Who will get there first?

Just need a beige table cloth.

And with the barricades in the core set you'll have plenty of scatter terrain.

Looking good!

Great terrain! You and your kids did a great job.

Question about the Imperial Terrain buildings:

Is there supposed to be a big gap between the roof and the wall, or is that something that happened when the texture was added? I presume the gap in the archway is so you can slide a door in and out. Did it come with doors?

Those moisture vaporators look pretty cool. I think I'm going to pick some up before too long.

Thanks.

1 hour ago, Force Majeure said:

Great terrain! You and your kids did a great job.

Question about the Imperial Terrain buildings:

Is there supposed to be a big gap between the roof and the wall, or is that something that happened when the texture was added? I presume the gap in the archway is so you can slide a door in and out. Did it come with doors?

Those moisture vaporators look pretty cool. I think I'm going to pick some up before too long.

Thanks.

Thank you for the kind words. This project has been a lot of fun.

Concerning the Imperial Terrain buildings, the gap in the fourth picture of the previous post is exaggerated because my kids did not put the roof on straight. It actually sits flush with a snug but not-too-tight fit. A better example can be seen in the last picture above. There is a little gap to put a door in, and the houses came with doors. I just have not painted them yet. The whole thing is very well-constructed, and the pieces all fit together well, even with a little texture on them. I had to sand the arches a little bit because I had put too much texture on them and the doors didn't fit anymore, but that was easily fixed. The vaporators are pretty handsome, and I look forward to getting them painted up.

I have been working steadily on finishing my Tatooine table before the release of Legion. First of all, I textured the bases of my crashed TIE fighter with Vallejo Brown Earth Gel, and I added a wash and some highlights. I thought that this would make the piece more flexible--it could be used in a Judland Wastes setting or even an Endor setting (my next project). I also redesigned the rocks around the smaller half of the crashed TIE fighter. Finally, I added some light battle damage. I would have done more, but it was really hard to cut through that plastic.

I also painted my vaporators from Imperial terrain (just a couple days before the FFG vaporators were announced). I can't decide if I like the earth-tone or if it would have been better as off-white.