Craft your own 3D outside tiles

I found this interesting tutorial that I'm sure you guys will like ! It is from a cool blog that I just found. Make sure to pay a visit ! 

http://paulslotrminis.blogspot.be/2013/01/3d-tiles-part-5-overland-areas.html

Okay, so while waiting for the pre-cast plaster pieces to arrive, more cork tiles arrived, and I decided to try making some of the 'road to legend' expansion's overland encounter pieces.

Quartet Cork Tiles:

First things first: I do not recommend Quartet Cork Tiles. They cost more than the tiles I bought at Bunnings (can't remember what brand they were, but I'll be buying more at some stage so I'll take note) however, they were thinner, more fragile, and when I glued paper templates for the overland tile shapes onto them, the cork tiles curved. I had to carefully bend them in the opposite direction a few times (one of the tiles snapped when I tried doing this! Had to superglue it back together) and sat heavy weights on top of them. They still have a small visible curve in almost all the pieces. However, it's small enough that I'm just going to go with it. Not happy about these Quartet tiles though.

So, I did the same thing as for the Journey in the Dark dungeon pieces, and made three cork tile sized paper templates that contained the layout for the overland tiles. I had free space, so I included the water, pit and some of the mud pieces as well onto the tiles. Cut them all out, and can now flock and paint them up!

Step By Step Overgrown Crossroad

after cutting out the tile segments, I tested my process on a crossroad pieces - four-way tile with tree/shrub squares in the middle.

I started with Castellan Green, blocking in the grass areas of the tile

then I used mournfang brown to coat where the foliage area will go

Then I remarked the grid square locations by putting little white dots in the corners of each square - I don't want grid lines on the overland tiles, breaking up the grass look, so I thought I'd try this instead.

I then used small flocking grit (Gale Force 9). Loosely spread super glue about the foliage area, piled grit on top, then tapped the tile to shake off the loose grit.

Then a light wash over the whole surface, concentrated more on the grit, but also a light brush over the green to mottle it a bit as well. I used Agrax Earthshade, which is sort of like the old Devlan Mud washes.

Then a drybrush with Karak Stone, and scrub some around the edges of the earth.

Then get summer clump foliage (Gale force 9) and break up into small pieces of roughly equal thickness.

The idea is to glue it like bushy shrubbery into the earth area, to mark the 'overgrown' parts of the map tiles. This could represent where trees, hedges, thorns, or whatever, are growing, depending on the scenario being played. I chose this method, because it stands out from the grass, but also, I can stand figures on top of it without them falling over, if I get the pieces on right.

Finally, put glue onto the grass areas, and flock with static grass. Again, I glued rather loosely, so that after tapping off the loose grass, it was an uneven surface, with some of the paint showing through a little in a few places, which I think is a more natural sort of look for the grass.

Finally, I touched up the white dots again, and the piece is finished.