Terrain Queen – Tutorials, tips and tricks for building terrain models

Most houses have some form of fence around them and I can show you a very easy method to make them. This will be using lollypop sticks as the majority of the fence. When using lollypop sticks, you will also need baby wipes, EPS foam, black and brown paint and something to cut the sticks with. Then you want to cut the sticks to the right length and stain them brown. Glue them together then cut the foam to the right length and stick that onto the fence to create beams This method of using lollypop sticks will need slightly more equipment and is better for making fences such as back garden ones, where they are tall and people can't see over them. However I do think this is overall very easy to do and will end up looking very good in a model of a house. Step 1 Below you will see a list of tools and equipment you will need in order for you to be able to do this EPS foamLollypop sticksA small saw (or something you can use to cut the sticks)Wire brushCutting matScalpel knifeRulerPaintbrushAcrylic paint (black, white, brown and yellow)Sand paper (optional)Baby wipes Step 2 We are going to start with the lollypop sticks. Glue as many of them together as you are going to need for the length of your fence. You can either glue them together or have a thinner stick going horizontally across them and gluing them like that. I will be using another stick to go across them as I think it makes it more supported and less likely to fall apart. Just remember that there will be foam posts along the length of your fence, so bare that in mind when gluing them together. Because I want my fence to be smaller than the length of the stick, I am going to be cutting them in half horizontally so I've drawn a line where I will eventually cut them. If your model is small, you can cut them in half lengthways and that will give the impression that there are more of them and they will obviously appear thinner. I am only going to be gluing 10 together, just so I can give you an idea of what its going to look like. Step 3 While you are waiting for the glue to dry on the lollypop sticks, you can start on the foam posts. When you are cutting out the posts, just make sure that they are thicker than the lollypop sticks as that will make it look more realistic. They also need to be the same height as the sticks, so know the measurements you are working towards in the beginning. Once you have cut out as many as you need, you can texture them with the wire brush. Just run it along the surface of all of the long sides as that will give the impression of a wood grain. However only do this lightly and a few times because with these sorts of fences, there usually isn't much woodgrain on them and we need it to match the amount that is going to be on the lollypop sticks. Step 4 Now we are back on the lollypop sticks, and when they are dry, you can start to stain them. Mix the brown paint with some yellow paint until it reaches a golden brown colour. Then put some of that onto a baby wipe (if no baby wipes are available, then wet tissue will work as well) and start smearing it onto the lollypop sticks. If too much goes onto the sticks, then you can take a dry tissue and wipe over it and that will get rid of the excess. What this technique does is get into all the grooves and highlights them so they're more pronounced. Step 5 While you are waiting for that to dry, you can paint all of the foam posts the colour you originally did the rest of the fence in. This brings out the shadows and will make it look better overall. Make sure that you get into all the areas where the wire brush pressed down into it as any white spots left will ruin the effect we are going for. Once that paint is dry, you can drybrush over it with the a slightly lighter shade than you used for the lollypop sticks. This will help with the look of it to make it look like its all made of the same material. Step 6 We are going back to the lolly pop sticks while we wait for the paint to dry. Cut down the lollypop sticks to the right height and make sure they are the same height as the foam beams that were cut earlier. If you want them to have a finished look where they are cut, then you can sand down then areas where you cut them, and then paint them if you want, but that is not necessary as the sticks are so thin, it is unlikely anyone is going to notice. Step 7 The last step is to glue this all together. Once everything has been painted and it has all dried, you cant start gluing the foam posts to the rest of the fence. Make sure that posts are equally spaced apart and if you have any corners, they are in those as well. Glue the sticks into the middle of the foam as that will give a more equal look and double check that everything is the same height Another Style Another way you could style the fence instead of it being flat, could be to slightly overlap the sticks onto each other to create a slightly different look. You would have to do all the cutting before you could glue it all together and paint it, but this way of making the fence would possibly make it more structurally sound than the original way that I have detailed above.

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