Cheap & Easy Terrain #2 - Pizza Box Trees

Transcription

1 Cheap & Easy Terrain #2 - Pizza Box Trees TOO THE TREES yep this go around we are making TREES Every D&D game and many table top games have woods and forests. Bandits and highwaymen hide in them. Creepy monsters lurk under their shadowed boughs. Elves live in them. Rangers hunt and trek them. Adventurers well adventurers camp, fight, die and well adventure in them. So if you use miniatures in your game, there is a need for trees. Store bought trees are very cool, very expensive and for roleplaying, kind of cumbersome to move and play around and through. With that in mind, I give you wait for it PIZZA BOX TREES Now, I know what you are thinking, what does pizza have to do with trees? Well that s simple, The box is perfect card stock for trees and you get eat the pizza. So you get food and the box it came in (that you would normally throw away) is the main thing you need for making trees for your gaming table. Now they are not as fancy as store bought and they are more 2D than actual fake trees, but they are easy to play around, give your monsters and your players places to hide and fight around Also they are easy to store. Oh, and not to mention, if they get messed up, you aren t out much in the way of cash. So let us get down to how you make them. Step 1: Materials and Tools You need the following items to make your trees. 1 - Pizza Box (empty of pizza) Foam Core - (to make he bases for your stands of trees. You can use a sheet or just some scraps from anther project) Mini Hot Glue Gun & Glue Sticks (only a few glue sticks for this one) Hobby Knife - (For cutting foam core) Scissors - (for cutting cardboard) A Pencil A Black Marker A roll of masking tape (optional)

2 You will also need paint and paint brushes to paint your trees (but I bet you knew that) Step 2: Cut Some Tree Bases foliage. We are just looking for some trucks and branches). Once your satisfied draw over the pencil lines with your marker (old eyes like mine need clear lines) and then use your scissors and cut them out. Try and have a coupe of lone trees, but most keep attacked together, kinda like paper dolls. If your need to use your hobby knife to cut some of the inner branches of the attached trees. The idea is to give a representation of trees and trunks for game play. If you want towering oaks best drop the cash on storebought trees, because these pizza box badboys can only be so realistic. Step 4: Plant those Trees Use your Hobby Knife and cut out four or five bases of various sizes from your foam core scraps or sheet (that should be enough to get your tree collection started). Once you have them, peel the pater off the side you want to bee seen. Step 3: Draw and Cut out your Tree Shapes Take your pizza box and use a pencil to draw some basic tree shapes (forget leaves and

3 Ok, so we are not really planting, but glueing the tree shapes to your bases. Take your Hobby Knife and score line across your base the same length as your tree shapes. Then grab your Hot Glue Gun and lay a generous bead of glue along where you scored the base. Then just shove the trunk of your tree shapes into the glue and foam core base and now your are planted Step 4.5: Masking Tape Option Cheap & Easy Terrain #2 Step 5: Time to Paint and Finish your Pizza Box Trees. Here is how I paint my trees (and most of my terrain). Note, you have no need to be an artist to paint terrain. Sloppy is sometimes better and look a bit more real. Also, its just terrain, and is a backdrop for the game, so juts do it quick and dirty. Base Coat all your trees and bases black (just slop it one and try and cover most of them) I like to use a stiff brush and kinda of scrub it on in avery light coat for this project. Ok, so you don t really need to do this, but ti does add a bit of texture and durability to your trees. Cover your tree shapes in either patches of masking tape or the entire thing in masking tape (making sure to leave some good creases and wrinkles). For the trees I did for this, I did a bit of both. Next, Dry brush the tress and bases with brown (once again just do it quick and dirty, the patchiness of the black and brown give some good tree bark effects. Also you can do this before the black is fully dry, the mix works well. Since you scrub bit on instead of lathered it, it should be pretty dry, pretty quick. Next, Dry Brush patches here and there with a light gray. follow the lines of your branches to give a few lights. (again this can be down while the brown is drying, mixing is good for a tree bark look) Next is a few details. You need tow different color greens (one dark and the other light) and a yellow too. Start with the dark and hit

4 technique. It works kinda good for anything tree and bush related. your trees and bases in patches with your darker green (making leaves, foliage and moss like areas) Then speckle the dark areas and about the base with the lighter green. Use the diff crush for this and just dab it around where it looks good to you. Lastly tale the yellow and ad it to a few places to break things up. I wouldn't get too crazy with the yellow, a little goes along way. Let it all dry and you are ready for the game table. If you like you can add some grass and scrub juts like the tree shapes to break things up and give more places for miniatures to hide as I did with these I just made. Until next time, enjoy your new trees and may be make a whole forest using this

5 Here are some in action on the game table.