And Cardboard turns into masonry! Homemade 1/1000 terrain -A tutorial of sorts-

[2500kgm3]

This thread is conceived as a kind of blog where I will share the process of creating my first terrain piece in 1/1000 scale. You will see what I did, and where I went wrong, hopefully helping people new to modelling terrain in Sails of Glory.

Please consider I am not in any way as talented as many people here. My terrain has serviceable looks, but is not hyperdetailed. If you like what I did, you will surely be able to replicate it. You will probably do better, in fact.

Let's get started!

- - - - - - -

Step 1) Choosing what to build

The first step in my voyage through terrain making was to have a clear picture of what I wanted.

I decided I wanted a centerpiece for my table, but I didn't want it to be too big, since I intuitively feel Sails of Glory works best with small islands and reefs that hinder maneuverability, while larger islands may became just a way to reduce the surface of the table. And now go on reading to witness how I go against my own advice next xD

With a game such as Sails of Glory, rooted in fascinating history, I could not just create generic islands. I wanted something with a similarly rich history which transcended my limited ability to make a good model. So I started researching about island fortresses in the Napoleonic era.

I wanted something as small as possible, which had played a role in the conflict. The forts in small islands near the coast built to help defend France and Britain from an invasion looked like a good fit.

Among those, I chose Saint Marcouf, a French fort built in a small island to the north of France very shortly after Trafalgar





I chose this landmark for the following reasons:

-It's unique looks and visual appeal.

-It is reasonably well documented.

-It's on the bigger side of what I wanted, but as a centerpiece, it should do.

Step 2) Getting ready

Before grabbing the knife, I find necessary to make some preparations.

First, I decided which image to use as a plan for the island. In the end I chose to follow the satellite images available via Google Earth instead of closely following the drawings of the era for two reasons:

-Being able to measure the island using the proper tool in Google earth made it easier to determine actual size and makes it easier to scale the model. Some times it's really hard to figure out scale in old, hand drawn plans at low resolutions.

-It seems the water level has risen over the years, and Ille du Large is not really large anymore. Since I'm trying to keep my terrain as small as possible for gameplay purposes, I justified ignoring the age appropiate plans that show a bigger island and go with the smaller version.

So I started drawing the outline of the terrain, the fortifications, and any other thing I considered important.



Then scaled it to 1:1000. I had tried with 1:2000 before, but it looked so wrong next to the 1:1000 ships that I decided to go with the proper scale and don't mess with any other option. Having ships raised half a centimeter by the base during gameplay doesn't do any favours to terrain in the right scale, but it is way worse if the terrain is smaller than it should!

Finally, I printed plans of the islands with a grid of one centimeter. The regular plan will help me when trying to model and sculpt on top of the island, but I also printed a mirrored version of the plans which will be useful when I transfer the outline of the islands to polystyrene.




Since I am working with several centimeters thick struded polystyrene the angle at which the knife enters the polystyrene through one side can cause important deviations on the outline drawn on the opposite side. Therefore I wanted to draw the outline of the island in the side of the polystyrene which was going to be glued to the base I was using, as it shhould be the one closely resembling the outline of the island. Given that this drawing would end upside down glued to the base, I used the mirrored plan to make sure the actual island outline was not mirrored when not upside down.




I first drew a grid equal to the one in the drawing in the polystyrene, labeled it, and used it as a reference for copying the outline of the plan, but there are many other ways to transfer a drawing into a polystyrene surface.

I also made templates with the shape of the cardboard pieces which would become the fortifications main building. I usually think about model buildings as onions, as I add layers of cardboard cut in shapes over previous layers to detail them.






Step 3) Obtaining the general shape of the island

Once I had the outline of the island clearly drawn into the polystyrene block, I cut the polystyrene in that shape. After I had removed any excess polystyrene, I also cut a piece of a plastic sheet in a similar shape a couple of centimeters bigger as a base using my new island-shaped polystyrene block as a reference. You may use any material you want as a base, as long as it doesn't change shape when wet.



You can see here the outline of the island, beyond the moat, has been also given a sloped shape using a knife, in order for it to resemble a rocky shore. Within the moat, the main fort piece has had its outline cut, but work has not started yet on the hills and walls. The plastic base I used is clearly seen under both polystyrene pieces. The inner piece is not glued yet, but the outer one is glued to the base using pva glue, sine the vapours of superglue melt polystyrene.

I slowly went on with my knife, cutting small pieces of polystyrene away until I got a rough shape similar to the one I was aiming for.



You will notice I am greatly overemphasizing the vertical axis, as everything is taller than the real element its inspired by. I think it helps the terrain stand out in the playing field since, as ships in sails of glory sail 5 millimeters or so over the water due to their bases, realistically proportioned terrain might not look capable level of blocking line of sight to the batteries. Thats a personal stylistic choice you may probably disagree on, so feel free to keep realistic proportions.


And now, we go from a rough geometry to something resembling an island with a fort.

Step 4) Sanding and detailing

First, I started sanding the polystyrene surface to get softer edges. I did a light sanding on the rocks surrounding the fort, while heavily sanding the grass covered hills.



Then, I started cutting cardboard according to my templates to create the general shape of the main building of the fortress.



I added some details in layers of thinner cardboard to that building, and started cutting cardboard and gluing it to the polystyrene to simulate masonry walls.



You will notice I added some plastic cylinders from a plastic rod I found laying around to mimic the old cylindrical towers which, if I recall correctly, were destroyed in world war two.



Finally, our island is ready to get some texture and paint on it!




Step 5) Texturing, and painting

I first mixed some fine sand and watered down pva glue and applied it with an old brush on the areas covered in grass, to get some texture and cover any deep knife cuts which I could not sand away.

After it dried, I pproceeded to start painting right away with dollar shop acrylic paint. In retrospective, I should have applied some kind of imprimation layer (by brush if possible, since the gas from spray cans will also melt polystyrene) beforehand, since some paint started chipping away when I applied a final layer of very watered down brown paint to the whole model.

I found out grayish greens worked best as the base coat for grass. Then, I used a mix of green and yellow to dry brush the grassy areas and have the texture stand out a bit more.

For the masonry, I went with a darker, brownish yellow instead of the grey of the actual fortification for no real reason other than I didn't want it to stand out TOO much in the battlefield I started with darker colors on the ground and recesses and went with lighter tones as I went up. The color choice for masonry is one of the things I feel I might regret the most.

In the end, everything was covered by a very light brown ink. Here you can see the finished piece:

-It seemed easy to build since it includes little to no complex geometry that should be noticeable at 1:1000.

-Saint Marcouf is actually composed of two islands, Ille du Large and Ille du Terre, with barely 500 meters of water between them. If I'm happy with how Ille du Large (the one with the fort) turns out, I can model the other island and use both in a 120*90 play area while being geographically accurate. Hooray!


There are drawbacks, however. I feel I will need additional small terrain pieces to give my games more variety, since Saint Marcouf is rather on the larger side of what I wanted. So, if you don't mind me asking, Do any of you fine gentlemen know of some kind of island with a bit of Napoleonic history to it, measuring less than 100 meters? Preferably well suited for an European theatre of operations. Thanks in advance.

During the following days I will be posting work in progress pictures of my rendition of the Ille du Large, as I write the proper descriptions for each step. I hope you will follow me through this experience!