"Ever Used Hot Glue Gun To Texture An Entire Gaming Board?" Topic

Can you imagine all the cool and weird relief patterns you could put directly on the entire surface of a board, specially for small scale fantasy and Sci-fi?

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It looks like it helps to draw your shape beforehand with a pencil, before you begin "painting" with hot glue.

Also, here I'm wondering if the aluminum foil shown in this next video could be used to give the hot glue a rocky texture but, instead of leaving the foil in place, just peel it off after the hot glue has hardened. If so then heavy duty aluminum might be easier to pull off without tearing too much:

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That texture would pretty much be stuck there for good, right? I imagine that, after it's primed, painted and sealed, the textures would be able to take a lot of punishment.

Perhaps another option to "paint" with glue could be to use low-odor silicone or epoxy glue, since it could give some time to "sculpt" the material a bit before it hardens. And, if you want lumpy organic-looking bubbles, polyurethane glue might be the way, as it tends to bubble up and expand a bit with humidity.

Thoughts?

Dan

Dan you are The Man!

LOL. Thanks!

Well, I still can't lean over the table yet, or get down on the floor, or even lift a decent sized mdf board, so I don't think I'll be trying these crazy ideas myself for a while.

But if in the future any of you guys give "painting" textures on boards a try using hot glue (or silicone, epoxy glue, or polyurethane glue), then please let me know right here on this thread, so that others can see the results of your experimentation.

Dan

This is like watching Bob Ross, when I try that with a glue gun I would have some blobs of glue…

Lol. Well, this shows that even a child can "paint" with a glue gun:

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Here are a few more from the experts:

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Dan
PS. Maybe, instead of heavy duty aluminum foil, the medium to use when "sculpting" wrinkles on the hot glue is this parchment paper. Looks like it peels extremely easy:
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DM Scotty's YouTube videos on crafting cheap terrain for D&D games, is full of ideas for using Hot Glue for texturing. It is amazing what you can do with Hot Glue. His Stalagmites video is a classic example. If you are familiar with the infamous Lightning Bolt spell for D&D, check out his template for the spell. He has many more examples of using Hot Glue for terrain texturing, but these are classic examples.

As for using Aluminum Foil: it works superbly as an armature, to which you apply Hot Glue. Removing it is pretty much out of the question -- the Hot Glue covers it, being attached with great strength. Trying to remove it typically tears the whole thing apart. Feel free to experiment, though. This is the Internet, after all, so why believe me?… LOL!

For most applications, Low Temp Hot Glue is better: it sets much faster than Hi-Temp Hot Glue. They pretty much have the same strength, the only real difference is working time. Gravity will also drag the more liquidy Hi-Temp Glue down flat, more than the Lo-Temp Glue, due to it being liquid longer.

There are colored Hot Glue sticks available. This can help quite a bit, if you can use a stick in your needed base color. However, regular, clear/white Hot Glue takes acrylic paint exceptionally well -- without primer. It really is fantastic to work with in terrain-making. Try it. Cheers!

PS: Baker's Parchment Paper will NOT stick to Hot Glue! Wax paper will! Do not make that mistake… I used my Hot Glue Gun to make spider webs by tracing the pattern out on Parchment Paper, then I peeled them off, without issue. Check out my blog page on the topic. Cheers, Part Deux!

Sgt Slag: "There are colored Hot Glue sticks available. This can help quite a bit, if you can use a stick in your needed base color."

I think I've even seen black glue sticks online.

Thanks so much for the great tips and links!

Dan

Interesting, Hot Glue Bocage might be a possibility.

Dynaman8789

You mean like hedges? For what size/scale?

Dan
PS. Just found another amazing look:
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Side Bar: Hot Glue has also been used to injection mold figures, using homemade silicone molds. It is not perfect, nor ideal, but is is functional. I may need to try this, myself…

I play war games with 54mm plastic Army Men. I contacted Timmee Toys, asking if I could bulk buy some Mine Sweeper figures -- I use them as Combat Engineers. They told me that they can't sell just that one figure, as there is only one cavity for it, in the mold of figures, so they would have to rob sets for the Mine Sweepers. They suggested I buy extra sets, containing one Mine Sweeper figure, out of 12 types included in each set, and sell off the figures I don't need… I would have to buy sets of 96 figures, to get perhaps eight figures that I wanted! I would like 30-40 Combat Engineers: 40 / 8 = five sets of 96 figures, meaning I would have 440 unneeded figures to unload…

I may need to join the throngs of Chinese pirate Army Men makers, and make a mold of the one figure type that I need more of. Not sure I want to go to that much trouble, though. Cheers!

Sgt. Slag, can't you just 3D print the figure you want?

If I had the skills set and the software tools needed to design/scan a figure, and slice it for a 3D printer, AND I had a 3D printer… Yes, I could. >;-) Cheers!

I just looked up hot glue icicles and found all sorts of ideas that could be useful for anyone looking to make a frozen world terrain board.

I still can't believe how skillful some people can get at using a glue gun.

Dan