HOW TO MAKE YOUR OWN TERRAIN:
Futuristic Buildings

• Plastruct (commercial plastic girders)
• razor saw
• miterbox

Making a 2-level Necromunda building the other day, I found a very cool way to support a 2-level structure without chopping up my nice long girders (plastruct) into ~3" segments.

Using a miterbox/razor saw, I notched the girder at each level, letting the girder extend a bit past the top level (just an artistic 1/2" or less). This lets the girder extend the full length of the building and makes it look much better IMO.

Also, cutting short bits with a 45 degree cut on each side makes very good looking support struts (in case you hadn't realized it yet). In the case of these long girders, using two struts (one above and one below the floor) is superb looking.

Now I just need a way to glue plastruct securely...

• Packing trays

A source for interestingly shaped buildings for science fiction games is the plastic trays that are used to hold various products inside their boxes. I've got a number of bulidings made from the trays of contact lens cleaning solutions, printer ink cartridges, and my computer mouse.

To create my buildings, I generally glue the tray to a suitable base to strengthen it, then add bits to represent doors, exhaust stacks, etc. I then prime the building and paint on other needed features such as windows.

These buildings look great, and the various shapes liven up the table.

1. Spray it black
2. Dry brush, or air brush, lighter and lighter shades of gray all the way down to white.

I start off with Pewter Gray [an acrylic paint made by Apple Barrel, found in craft stores] and then Country Gray, then add a little white to that, then go to Antique White, then to White White. Looks fine to me!!

If you don't have an airbrush and dont't wanna get stoned or kill the ozone from your fumes, use Formby's Marble Step One Base Foundation spray paint. It is acrylic and the propellant is EF. Takes forever to dry, though, so spray a lot of pieces at once. Oh yeah, it costs about 4-5$ at your local do-it-yourself store (I got mine at Kmart.)

For a destroyed building, I DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS, my 7-year-old cousin discovered it for me. Use the real ozone-killin spray paint and hold it like 2 inches away from the form mentioned above, and whammo!! Somebody had fun with a melt gun all over the place!!!

• discarded toys

My best success has come by garage-sale hunting. Nothing beats finding busted sci-fi toys and construction sets!

Legions of Power provides some great construction pieces for Mekton or 40K battlefields, as I've found, with its modular, high-tech setup. But it's discontinued...

The only problem I have with using toys is that you end up with a hodge podge of different styles, textures, and colors. It's hard to make buildings that look like they were built at roughly the same time with the same materials.

• whatever's being discarded

I've found that scrounging in the garbage which every home generates gives you a ready source of building parts for SF.

You need a razor saw to get the parts of large soft drink bottles down to a usable size, and something like the water putty to do bases, but there are all kinds of odd bits that can be used:

• The cases that hold floppy disks can be dissassembled and trimmed into some sturdy large buildings.
• Old 3 1/2 floppies can be used as ready made walls.
• Elmer's Carpenters Glue [white glue] and stiff cereal-carton material allow you to knock together a pretty good city wall, which will paint up well enough to disguise the original material.

I keep a pretty big box of odd junk scrounged from kits, sprue, and odd bits I've found just for the occasional fit of creativity. You'll need to invest in about 4 types of glue since not everything glues well with only one type.

• ready-made plastic buildings

Check out model train stores. The plastic buildings are fairly cheap.

(One of the scales, I forget exactly which, is close enough to the game I play -- 40k.)

I always do some painting on mine, but if you're in a hurry, the plastic is molded in color.

Train stores also tend to have things like water/propane tank kits, engines, and that sort of thing -- these make nice terrain bits. (I have quite a mekboyz workshop in my collection now!)