Making Road Terrain Tiles

[Whiterook]

As you’ve been able to see in various other threads on my Vietnam War miniatures game project, which has evolved into a game I call, “The Legion: Rumble in the Jungle”, I’ve been creating various terrain tiles. I thought this might be a good opportunity to to share the method I’m using to create these.

The key for this project was using COPIC markers, which are a permanent ink dye marker with a solid brush shaped nib on one end and a chiseled nib on the other. For this project, I am using the brush now exclusively. I’d not used these before so, it was a learning curve   The thing about this ink is, the dye is in an alcohol solution so, it dries fairly fast…like in several minutes to get to a tacky state, and a half hour before I would personally dare to touch the surface; a good overnight is recommended. Once dry, it’s pretty stable for handling and using minis on… I didn’t treat them with any sealer of any kind. The other thing to keep in mind is, the ink is very watery, and (…likely, the alcohol makes…) it pool in small puddles where the nib presses it into the surface; that surface being cardboard game tiles (see here).

I looked at examples of jungle terrain art in other games; and I researched actual maps and photographs of the Vietnam jungle to get a design idea of what I wanted to try and do. My first faux pas was trying a sample piece on heavy art paper, where the ink actually blends wonderfully. When I did my first tile, the surface of the tile is glossy and has some sort of protective layer that makes it NOT absorbent! …hence, pooling! I was honestly, shocked at my first attempt because of that pooling, and became a bit disheartened, however, I adapt3d and used the pooling puddles to an advantage of creating texture imagery; the open ground grass for instance, has a gazillion little patches of grass, made by the outer edge of the dabbed pools…it works well enough. 

So the process starts with a freehand permanent ink drawing of the terrain elements or structures them selves. This is done with a fountain nib art pen, which you can buy on Amazon for about $10 USD. In the case of the four road tiles I’m creating today, it looked like this…



Note that this is for positioning of the main elements… the 1- and 2-Jungle tiles , and a Hut tile; these images will be what one 15mm miniature American Green Beret soldier can enter to be “hidden” in the game in question.

[Whiterook]

As you can see above, the jungle and hit imagery was placed at the top of the tiles, which corresponds to the style of the other terrain tiles made; as you move the miniatures across the battlefoeld map of tiles, you place Unhidden soldiers in clearing areas of the tile, and hidden soldiers in the terrai features, like a jungle image or hut.

The next step was adding in a road. This is where I switched to sketching with the COPIC markers, in this instance, the color Sand…



…now an important aspect of this is, geomorphic! I wanted the road t9 not only be somewhat centered on either side of the tile; the road itself could have curves, but the road had to leave the tile, able to to continue onto the next tiles’ road. That was a little tricky. Basically, after the first tile was made, it was lined-up against the next tile and the road marked at the edge of the new tile; and then, turn place the tile against the other side. Harder than it looks, as you’ll see in the tile below where I went off the reservation and made it a minor split off. Oh well.



Using the Sand color marker, I kept laying ink along the road, which of course, pooled, but made a nice road edge!



I’m just making the first four for now, to see how it all looks.

[Whiterook]

Next, the open ground grass was added with a yellow green color, starting at the Road edge and moving out. Using the method I figured out previously, I dab the color in around the jungle fronds and out, as well. The roads looked a little too dark, so I added some beige in, using light stripes with just the tip of the brush nib; the sand and beige colors blended nicely…



Tested out the look with a couple lined up to see how the effect looks…



the little pooling cam work to your advantage with the aforementioned texturing…



At this stage, I was feeling pretty confident that this was coming together well…next step, fine tuning the areas around the images!

[Whiterook]

The palm fronds use a Lime Green marker, building up the darkness by going back into the image of the first tile after completing the fourth.  The Jungle background around the image starts with a Nile Green marker, dabbing in dots, dropping lots of liquid in.



I build up a basic block pattern around the Jungle (a large main palm tree overhead, and small vegitataround it). If you keep dabbing over previous layers, the ink pool edges make mice patterns. The hut starts with a bright yellow, and them a darker yellow at the edges; and then using the art pen again, I draw in the thatch of thr roof, and broaden out the edges of the structure to give it more structure and shadow.

It was also at this point that I use the art pen to drop in quickly sketched mini dash-strokes to the Road edges, which gave it a nicer definition… I’m not looking so much for realistic artwork, as I’m looking for imagery to support recognition of gaming terrain,mix that makes sense to you.

[Whiterook]

The last step is involves using a dark gray marker to add in day shadows… I’ve found this is what goes the whole look together. I start with dabbing and drawing in between the fronds, at the vertices, out, and around the leaves; around the vegetation; and finally, using the very tip of the brush nib to dot in darks to the previously applied Nile Green. It’s tricky, more so not to overdo it!

On the hut, I added some dark shadows around the hut wnd vegitation, mainly with a cinnamon color. Pictured below are all the markers I used for these four tiles…



The final product came out nice. The roads connect well, and the tiles blend in nicely with the other tiles. And yes, I’ve a bunch more to make!



There you have it!

[mikeh]

This is really,really nice! I like this game so much as is, it would be fabulous to play on these boards.

[Whiterook]

Feb 28, 2023 13:55:47 GMT -5 mikeh said:

This is really,really nice! I like this game so much as is, it would be fabulous to play on these boards.

Thanks, Mike… I’m able to roll trough making these a little easier now that I’ve figured out a method. It’s interesting in that no two are exactly alike, which struck me today as making this a very customized product. If I keep adding as I’ve been though, I’m probably going to get to experience what it takes to refill one of these markers, hahaha… the yellow green has to be getting low!