Making Mine Scenery Part IX

Greetings terrain builders! On this Valentine's Day weekend I'm going with a quick and simple project: rock piles. Rock piles are a thematic addition to the mine setting and can be extremely useful for game play as barriers and cover to hide behind. Plus, they're a great way to reduce your terrain making "waste."

First I began with some offcuts, a few 25mm round bases, and my breakaway blade. Personally, I hate waste. I try to get the most out of everything I can. Our hobby isn't exactly the most environmentally sound hobby out there so I try to reduce my impact by using most of my off cuts for other projects. I maintain a bin of off cuts of various sizes and most of the terrain made in this series has all been made from pieces in that bin saved from previous scenery projects.

I cut up and shaped the offcuts into rocks of various sizes and shapes using the same techniques I did for the mine walls detailed in Making Mine Scenery Part II.

I built these up into small pillars of large stones and glued them all together with wood glue. We'll get back to these in a bit.

With some tall piles done, now I wanted a pile of rubble, or maybe a section where the roof collapsed. I started this piece with a small offcut of 1/8" hardboard that was a little over 4" wide and I whittled the edges until it fit neatly in my roughly 4" wide mine corridors.

Like the tall rock piles, I shaped my foam off cuts and deliberately stacked them in a haphazard way that made the center the high point that the rocks were built up to, or represent the closest point to where these rocks fell from. Next I used a crappy old brush and painted glue on the base and any exposed areas of the top of the 25mm bases and then dipped the bases in play sand.

I let the glue dry for a while and when the foam and sand felt dry and secure I painted everything Citadel Scorched Brown in two successive coats.

Once these basecoats were done I went through all of the stages of drybrushing from Making Mine Scenery Part I and Making Mine Scenery Part III to make them blend in.

Here's a couple model eye view shots of the rock piles in use.

And finally an overhead view. These are quick and simple ways to use up some of that pink foam and hardboard waste you invariably have laying around, and it makes functional barriers for game play. Here are links to the rest of the series for your perusal. Like us on the Broken Contract Facebook and Twitter, and keep following us here! Thanks for reading.
-Nick

Making Mine Scenery Part I
Making Mine Scenery Part II
Making Mine Scenery Part III
Making Mine Scenery Part IV
Making Mine Scenery Part V
Making Mine Scenery Part VI
Making Mine Scenery Part VII
Making Mine Scenery Part VIII