Reconditioned Hex Terrain Rock Faces.

Hello There. I have completed a commission for a friend which is some of the last hex terrain I have to recondition for him.

The three hex terrain tiles were originally representing high ground but had no rock face. They were typical of the hex terrain available from the 1980's onwards. I covered the raised areas in styrofoam off cuts and after glueing them on with gorilla glue, or polyurethane expanding adhesive, I let it dry and carved the exterior to match up between the tiles.

The styrofoam was carved to match up between tiles. When I was happy with this I took a sharp scalpel bpade and carved the basic corrugated shape. I wanted the face to be irregular but also the separate layers of the styrofoam to be disguised so that the layers of foam board could not be seen. 

Once this was done I then ran the sharp scalpel blade paralell to the ground many times to form the geological layers in the rock faces. Every now and then this cut small piecs of the foam face free of the board but this is not a problem as the irregularity of the paralell cuts makes the frock look more realistic.

Then paint the whole face in black. As there are many recesses in the rock face I added some water to thin the paint and some washing up liquid to break the surface tension of the paint and water. This allowed the paint to better permeate into these recesses. I found that spending a long time under a strong light led me to miss many spots here and there and tell tale bright blue styrofoam would poke through here and there. I had to take a break until my 'paint gap blindness' went away.

Once I was sure this had all been covered in black I then heavily dry brushed the rock face surface in dark grey and progressively lightened the grey and made the dry brushing more subtle until you reach a very slight dry brush in just white. This process picks out the subtle gaps and spaces in the rock faces.

Here is the last remaining half tile to show what I had started with. This system of dry brushing can be used with different colours. Sandstone cliffs are various shades of brown so that could also be used.

The sample figures are 28mm Perrys ACW Confederate infantry and a mounted Union Colonel from Old Glory for scale.