"Arid rough terrain - a tutorial on D&B" Topic

Some time ago I finished a set of arid terrain and thought it may be of use to others giving some pointers how I made the different pieces.  In this post I would like to focus on the ever useful rough terrain, or in this specific case a terrain piece that features deeper sand. While you could depict rough terrain with a stretch of land filled with rocks and thorny bushes, I felt it would be much more interesting and challenging to depict an area that features fine, wavy sand, where with each step your troops or characters sink deeper, adding to the exhaustion of sun and thirst. I did also add some weathered rock outcroppings and sparse vegetation to round the piece off.

This build is pretty straight forward:

1. First we cut some MDF to size and use XPS to build up any rock outcroppings.

2. We then cover the remaining areas with air dry clay and pre-shape the lines in the sand.

3. We cover the outcrops with filler and carve the rock to shape.

4. We add sand and animal tracks.

5. We apply a basecoat and drybrush.

6. We add some brushes.

If this build is of interest to you you find more pictures and more in-depth step-by-step instructions on my blog DaggerAndBrush.

Excellent work.

Peithetairos

OMG, that looks incredible! I'm saving this for sure. The shellac is a great tip.

Got any tutorials for making crescent dunes?

Dan
PS. This one is excellent too:
link

As it happens I have one in the pipeline ;P. A teaser pic:

What a beauty! I can't wait to see that dunes tutorial.

Question … is the angle too steep for figures to stand on? What is ideal? Twenty degrees or less?

Dan
PS. And the tutorial after that should be how to surround buildings with sand slopes on one or more sides, and make it look natural:

I was planning on doing something like this in one point. I would say cutting the sand shape out of XPS, fitting the buildings and then sanding the XPS smooth would be the first step. Then I would cover it all in fine sand and fixate the sand just as it falls with thinned down acrylic medium.

Should be fairly straight forward, fixing the sand in place without droplet artifacts forming will be the hardest part, but IPA may help to pre-wet the sand.

Salutations, gentlefolk,

XPS = Extruded Polyestyrene (Pinkboard, Blueboard, etc) right??

but I'm sure that you're not using IPA meaning 'India Pale Ale' or International Phonetic Alphabet or Institute for Portfolio Alternatives (or a chain of physical therapists in my neck of the woods – how the *&^%$#@$%& does Google know I woke up with a crick in my back this morn ?)

Please enlighten us. Thanks very much!

Yes, the dense stuff, not EPS (the packaging stuff).

While I enjoy an IPA, what I actually referred to is
Isopropyl alcohol, but I am not sure if this is the proper abbrevation :P. It is basically an agent that reduces surface tension, so the glue is sucked into the sand as opposed to be resting on top of it.

Salutations, Peithetairos !

Thanks very much !

You are very welcome.

Really nice level of realism with the wind-blown ridges in the sand!!

Thank you Baranovich. Oddly enough it is not common to depict such lines, but I think they add a lot of character.