Making Trees

Making Trees

As I’ve mentioned many times before on this blog, I use Heroscape map tiles for my Dungeons and Dragons homebrew campaign, Skyfell. A large number of locales in Skyfell are in dense jungles and forests. While the Heroscape trees are great, I simply don't have enough of them to really drive home the flavor of many of those settings. Unfortunately, the original Heroscape terrain is now pretty pricey on eBay. So I decided to pull up my big-gnome pants and set into a little bit of do-it-yourself crafting.

After a some looking around, I found trounistro's 30-palm-tree set for a pretty good deal. This set includes a variety of types and sizes. They are also plastic, which appealed to me because I didn't want to fuss too much about storage and handling. The only drawback was that while each tree had posts to anchor it into either a base or a diorama, the set came with no bases. I didn't want to damage any of my Heroscape tiles either. So, I knew I'd need to make bases from scratch.

Trees, Trees, Trees

By a wonderful stroke of luck, we had recently picked up a cake from the neighborhood grocery store. The platter the cake was sitting on was made of plastic. The underside had a honeycomb pattern in it. The amazing part was that each hex in the pattern was the exact same size as the Heroscape hex tiles.

Pan Pan Bottom with Perfect Hexes

It was an easy enough matter then to whip up some plaster of Paris, fill in each hex, and then pop out each one after fully dried. The result was perfect hex base the size of a Heroscape hex tile.

Pouring the Plaster

A Plaster Hex Base

As a test, I drilled some holes into a few of the hexes. Each hole was the size of the posts in the tree trunks. I tried out the various tree shapes and sizes in different positions to get a sense of what was possible. What I discovered was that since the hexes were made of plaster, there was enough weight on each one to help keep its trees from getting knocked over too easily. 

Testing Trunks on the Bases

After drilling all the holes, the next step was to decorate each hex. I started with a base coat of craft smart's "brown" paint. I wasn't going for complete coverage or finesse here. I just wanted to get some basic color in place before proceeding with the detail.

I wanted a little more flavor than just sand and grass for some of the bases. I wanted some variation in the surfaces. I also wanted some rocks. Rocks are always a nice touch and liven up even the dullest terrain set pieces. I happened to be eating some shelled peanuts while I was applying the base coat and decided to try using the shells as rocks. I collected and trimmed interesting bits and arranged them in various ways. The result was encouraging so I fitted out a few of the hexes with peanut shells.

Trying Peanuts as Rocks

I used toilet paper and Elmer's glue to rough up the hex surfaces and build up the "ground." The general process here was to put on a little glue and then tap the toilet paper into the glue with a toothpick. By repeating this process, I eventually ended up with a saturated blend of paper and glue. This mixture formed a medium that had enough bulk to pass for terrain while still being very easy to shape. With the relatively high amount of glue at play, though, it did take a little patience while I waited for my handy-work to dry. Once everything was dry enough (okay, so I wan't as patient as I could have been), I applied another coat of brown to the ground and a coat of Apple Barrel's "pavement" paint to the rocks.

Applying Another Coat to the Terrain

I then dry-brushed some of folk Art's "sunny yellow" onto the ground and a some of Apple Barrel's "granite gray" onto the rocks. Where the plaster base was covered by neither toilet paper nor peanut shell I brushed on craft smart's "grass green" and dry-brushed a little of Apple Barrel's "kiwi" to suggest grass or other vegetation. Once again, I wasn't very careful in this application because I wanted to have some of the green encroach onto the toilet paper just as grass will encroach into areas where there is no vegetation in real life. 

Applying Some More Paint

Next, I applied modelers moss to the green areas. I started first by spreading Elmer's glue in the locations I wanted. I then dropped pinches of Woodland Scenic's Coarse Turf onto these areas. A quick tamping with a toothpick helped to ensure coverage. After the glue dried, I dumped off the excess moss to use for other bases. I then stuck the tree posts back into the original holes. The overall result was great!

A Finished Set Piece

While I love these trees, their trunks look a little too artificial since they are made from brown plastic. To get away from this plastic look, I did a quick coat of brown with a gray dry-brush (using the same paint as I had for the bases). I wasn't going for perfect because, let's face it, I was running out of steam. Besides, I didn't have the time to really go into full-realism mode with the paint job because my next game session was only a day away. So, I was only going for “not plastic.” The result was good enough considering I had 30 trees to paint in this fashion.

It was now time to insert all the trees into all the bases. I had deliberately attempted to avoid the holes I had drilled throughout the entire process. I was successful to varying degrees. In some cases I had to punch through the toilet paper ground with a toothpick to reopen the holes.

The overall effect was quite nice. Since each base had several holes, I could mix and match the trees in whatever way looked best for the final design of each base. I then applied touch-up paint as needed and called the entire effort done.

I See Trees!

Here’s a couple of pictures of the trees in use. They more or less blend into the rest of the Heroscape set pieces and really breathe some renewed life into a terrain map. I’ve used them several times now and I love them. We haven’t knocked them over yet either. 

Trees in Use

The Trees In Play Again

The only thing I dislike about these is that the combination of plastic hex tiles and plaster hex bases makes for a slippery interaction. The trees can slide across the map if I don't put in a couple single-hex tiles as buffers. It's only a minor annoyance though so I haven't fretted much about it. I already have some ideas for combating this if I ever get really annoyed with the situation.

Well, that’s how I made custom palm-tree set pieces that are scaled for Heroscape hex tiles. Thank you for reading and don’t miss the session summaries I’ve been writing up about my Dungeons and Dragons campaign. Here’s the session index.

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