"Coastal terrain board, revisit Mod Podge after 10 years" Topic
13 Posts
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| Baranovich | 19 Oct 2025 9:21 a.m. PST |
Back in 2015, I made a series of 4' x 2' modular terrain boards. Several of them had water features integrated into them. I made several boards with connecting rivers, and also two coastal boards. This is one of the coastal boards. All the water features were done using gloss Mod Podge over a painted MDF baseboard. I learned this technique, or I should say what inspired me to try the Mod Podge technique, in a sort of backhanded way from a wargamer who had a blog waaaay back in 2010 that he still maintains and is active on today, "Quindia Studios": quindiastudios.blogspot.com Now, in his tutorial he doesn't use Mod Podge for his rivers but rather a resin pour. But I believe he mentions in the articles the possibilty of putting some Mod Podge over the resin to give the river movement. The problem he said, was that doing rivers with just a resin pour gives you only a river with a very still, lifeless surface. That was what prompted me to seek out an alternative. Not soon after I came across a railroad modeler who did deep resin pours for his water layouts but then added Mod Podge over the top to give the water movement. So I looked at that and thought, why even use the resin? Why not let the dark color of the paint be the depth? Unless you actually want to have clear water that you can see down into for 6 or 8 inches, the resin feels like an unnecessary and redundant step. For large bodies of water like very wide, deep rivers, or very deep lakes or oceans, the water depth itself most often cannot even be seen. All you have is the surface of the water, with the dark color beneath. You generally can't tell how shallow or deep a body of water is if it gets beyond a certain depth. With that in mind, I thought that perhaps the gloss Mod Podge directly over a painted surface would give you the illusion of water depth without actually having to have real depth. This ended up being my results after attempting the technique:
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| Wackmole9 | 19 Oct 2025 11:05 a.m. PST |
Clear flexible painters cauk also works. |
| SBminisguy | 19 Oct 2025 1:08 p.m. PST |
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| Cacadoress | 19 Oct 2025 3:29 p.m. PST |
Baranovich They look great.
I use 2 by 4 terrain boards too. What were yours made of? I use stiff polyurethane insulation boards as the base, which have a little lip along the sides to fit together nicely. They're very light to carry. And then make the higher terrain cut from thick polystyrene sheets. Why not use real sand for the beach? I agree that unless you want to show fish, resin is a little redundant. And a tad expensive. PVA works just as well. Another way to make transparent waves over a painted surface is using cheaper PVA. Leave a bowel of it out for a few hours, it'll form a skin but be thicker underneath. Then you can pour out blobs for the waves in a few layers. When it's turned mostly transparent, you can smooth out the bases of the waves with your finger and a little water. |
| AntonRyzbak | 19 Oct 2025 10:09 p.m. PST |
My problem with water-based effects such as PVA, Modge-Podge, and most caulks is that they shrink rather aggressively so you need to use them in very thin layers or have your terrain mounted on sturdy panels. When I do use them I tend to apply small areas at a time and allow them to dry thoroughly before filling in the gaps to make a continuous surface. |
| FlyXwire | 20 Oct 2025 7:23 a.m. PST |
More good stuff Baranovich! I'm betting Mod Podge (which I use as my basing adhesive for sand and static grass), might also render streams on teddy bear fur or fleece mats too – with its semi-flexibility. Resin water more likely to crack if only slightly flexed, if not applied on a solid, flat tile as you're making here. |
Oberlindes Sol LIC  | 20 Oct 2025 9:57 a.m. PST |
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| Baranovich | 20 Oct 2025 11:11 a.m. PST |
Thanks for the feedback folks, much appreciated! @Anton, Yes indeed, that can be an issue with Mod Podge. When doing lakes, rivers, and oceans I do tend to have to use two passes of it so that the ripples and currents are "piled high enough." One coat of ripples or wave will shrink down a good deal. Although I will say that even so, a single coat does stand up enough to look like moving water. But that second coat really gives you a better thickness. I also find that when you're applying it, it helps to go slower and when dabbing it on the surface to allow for a second the Mod Podge to sort of gently fall off the brush so that it piles up a bit more. |
| Baranovich | 20 Oct 2025 11:49 a.m. PST |
@FlyXwire, Thanks for the feedback, mush appreciated! Mod Podge does indeed make excellent rivers. In fact I recently made a new set of Mod Podge river along with my ponds. I will be posting that shortly in a separate post. In the meantime, here are some pics. of a set of modular terrain boards I made back in 2015 at the same time I made the ocean boards. These are the same exact technique: The water surface is the MDF baseboard painted a dark color with Mod Podge over it. The river itself is carved down into the foam until it reaches the baseboard.
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| Baranovich | 20 Oct 2025 12:21 p.m. PST |
@cacadoress, Thanks for the feedback, much appreciated! My boards were made with 2 x 4 1/2" thick MDF board. I took some wooden framing and screwed and glued it around the edge of the MDF board. Then I cut a piece of pink insulation foam and set it into the frame and glued it in place, so that the foam and wooden framing were of the same height. That became the surface of the boards. For the river sections, I sawed out sections of the framing along the mid points on each edge of the board. This gave me my river open endings that would then be continued on with the next board. Actually, the beach area of the coastal board does have real sand glued down. The problem was that it seemed that if it was left unpainted it didn't feel like it was scaled right. The grains of sand felt too large, and painting them seemed to scale them a bit. Could be mostly just OCD on my part I supposed, lol. The very light, pale color paint of the beach I got the idea from looking at photos of actual beaches, and found that a good number of beaches around the world have this sort of lighter colored bleached sand. That being said, many beaches of course have a darker, more tan sand to be sure! I just chose the lighter version. |
| FlyXwire | 20 Oct 2025 12:34 p.m. PST |
That's going to be (and is already) a great gaming space! The scenics stationed around your play area, and your homes and hovels on-table show lots of applied skill (and with lots of stage-setting usefulness). Just little things…..like preserving the color palette from the river's clay bank to that of the hovel walls. |
| Baranovich | 20 Oct 2025 12:48 p.m. PST |
@FlyXwire, Thanks! I just wish the room was bigger. You can only access the actual gaming table from three sides, so one of the two players has to sort of look at his own battle lines from the side or kind of upside down. But it's still doable. Very cool you noticed the color palette. That is something that I actually sort of did almost without thinking about it. I've used the same brown color of cheap craft paint for both miniature bases as well as terrain boards and smaller terrain projects for over ten years. And so after a while that brown color became a common thread through everything I painted. Whenever I put stuff on the table, I suddenly am reminded how well things blend together when it's all brought into a game! |
| FlyXwire | 20 Oct 2025 1:32 p.m. PST |
Some people would never notice the color coordination – or assume it's just a pleasant accident (but sometimes it takes a paint list too……. :))). |
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