More simple Warhammer 40k terrain: craters and rubble piles

Time for some more simple 40k scenery: craters and rubble piles. Both are pretty easy projects and pretty quick too, if unlike me you plan out your work a little so you don’t need to continuously correct your mistakes along the way!

For the craters, I started with two old writeable dvd’s. I first closed off the central holes with mdf miniature bases. I then broke off semi-triangular wedges of cork from a pan coaster and hotglued these to the dvds, forming circles (see the picture below).

I then applied wall filler to the craters to hide the mdf circles covering the central holes and to add some texture to the cork. I then glued smaller bits of cork in between the larger wedges and added coffee grounds for texture. After this step I noticed that the cork wedges didn’t look very natural. Tapering them off made them look a lot better (picture below).

I then gave everything a coat of black paint: 

I still thought the craters didn’t look quite right, though. They were a bit too uniform for my liking, so I cut away some of the cork and glued in some smaller bits, trying to make everything look a bit more random. The result can be seen below.

After I was happy with the result, I gave everything another coat of black. If I were to make some more craters, I’d be sure to give the dvds a coat of paint before gluing on the cork though. Getting your brush in between the cork to cover up the reflective surface of the dvds is a real bugger! Anyway, the next step was to drybrush everything with medium grey, followed by light grey and then white. The centre of the crater was given a wash of dark brown. And that’s it. Pretty simple right? Especially when you don’t muck about as much as I did!

I didn’t take any work-in-progress pictures of the rubble piles, but their construction was pretty similar. I started by making the rough shape of the rubble piles by scrunching up some aluminium foil. I hotglued the scrunched up foil to some thin plastic from an old placemat and then added bits of cork of varying sizes. I also added some pipes made from drinking straws and corrugated iron made from cardboard. 

Again, If I were to make some more I’d be sure to give the aluminium foil a coat of black paint before gluing on the cork, because it is very reflective and it is a LOT of work trying to get paint into every nook and cranny afterwards. The rubble was then painted in the same way as the craters. First everything was painted black. The pipes were painted brown and the corrugated iron was painted metallic. Finally, everything was given a drybrush of medium grey, followed by light grey and then white. The corrugated iron was given a wash of brown to make it look rusty. 

The finished rubble piles. 

O yes, I also made this little thing. It’s just three pieces of pvc conduit pipe glued to a bit of plasticard and then painted grey.