"Flexible rough terrain - tutorial" Topic

You will be all familiar with the famous caulking method to make beautiful flexible wargaming mats. However, this technique does not only come in handy to cover an entire gaming table, but can also be used for scatter terrain, such as rough terrain, roads, villages and even hills. It can also be used to create a very versatile photography mat.

In this first installment I focus on making some flexible rough terrain featuring some rocky outcrops, brush and small bushes. I took my inspiration for this piece from ekimdj, who not only has a very nice blog, but also wrote a tutorial for flexible desert terrain on the Sweetwater-forum, so if you are able to read German check it out (it is pretty picture heavy, so you can follow it easily in any case).

ekimdj's Tutorial for flexibel desert terrain

This tutorial will also come in handy if you want to learn how to create basic groundwork, flexible or not. This technique can be applied to a small base or an entire terrain board.

Per usual I will give an overview of the materials you need, followed by detailed step-by-step instructions and finally some ‘action' shots showing off the piece's flexibility.

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Some pictures of the final piece that showcase its flexibility:

Naturally a scenic shot is in order, too:

I need to thank ekimdj again for the inspiration. I will surely make more pieces and will experiment how far this technique can go.

great idea and I like the feathered edge

Very useful. Thanks.

They are beautifully made. I will have to try them myself. Is the caulk acrylic or silicone? Also I have just made a game made as you first mention, however the mat has not remained flat, would you have any idea why?

Very nice. I've been working on something similar using tacky glues. My pieces are a bit smaller, but the same general idea.

Use acrylic caulk so you can paint on it. Silicone is hard/impossible to paint on.

Very interesting post. Thank you.

When you have more pieces please do an article on laying out a battlefield, with the flexible pieces on top of hills etc. And show more of how the magnetic tree attachments work out.

Thank you for your comments. It is indeed acrylic caulk. As Tiberius says Silicone cannot be painted effectively with acrylic paints.

Nevinsrip: can you elabroate on your use of tacky glue? do you use the glue instead of acrylic caulking?

I will show soem pictures of the terrain on my flexibel mat, but I fear the groundwokr won't match as the mat is an early work. For the next piece I'll try some wider magnets to allow placement of more top heavy trees. With hills I might jsut use this technique for the rim, so that the hill can conform to the mat, assuming the mat itself has pieces of styrofoam underneath to give the impression of rolling hills.