How to make cork bark rock faces for your wargaming scenery

hey guys Mel the Train tutor here with another Hill tutorial for you and in this hill tutorial what we're looking at is we're looking at using core bark to make realistic rocks in the Hills now this is a continuation of a sort of rocky hills sort of playlist and I'm going to keep continuing it but let's jump onto this a right what's this what's it's log of going from me right this is core bark okay there you go and it is the bark of the core tree which grows in Portugal and I think it can be harvested off the tree I think I've either every eight years or every eleven years but it's the only tree where you can harvest the bark and it will grow back which is really cool yeah but it is a limited resource our caucus right so this is obviously you know a big chunk of bark obviously now Bart's been used as a modeling material for donkey's ages I mean they actually selling in smaller pieces there's a manufacturing in the UK that makes railway Scenic's okay called Jarvis Jarvis Enix yeah and they actually sell you know bark fought specifically for hill purposes so this is nothing new this has been around for donkey's ages but it sort of slips under the under the radar with a long war gamers so I wanted to bring it up now revived Jarvis you pay a few quid for a smaller piece the best places to get the source stuff is from the varium suppliers because it's often used in tanks that have lizards snakes spiders all those sort of things so that's where you really want to be looking for this source stuff and a piece like this it's going to knock you back about I'd say about six seven pound okay and out of this you should be able to get at least you know three or four really good hills probably more if you do smaller but you know me I like big hills yeah but you're buying for book it's well worth it now quick sort of heads up if you do get it secondhand yeah watch it needs disinfecting which means ideally you need to clean it up you need to stick it in a solution of something like fifty percent water I'd say and then 25% PVA 25% disinfectant such as oh like debt or something like that or something that's a medical disinfectant it will smell for a little while you're gonna have to leave it let the fumes go off it or you're gonna have smelly terrain but yeah it's an organic this is organic and if it's been in a tank with animals and that sort stuff God knows what's in it yeah so you'll need to disinfect it now the other thing is this is sort of an important sort of safety announcement and you know you know when I make safety announcements yeah if I make a safety announcement yeah it's a proper safety announcement now you get various things growing on court bark okay they need cleaning off yeah so if I come up let me bring it now let's take it you got let's have a look I've just got to try and find it yet there you go sorry guys right that stuff that's lichen yeah rich in lichen yeah on top of that you've got more plant growth here obviously these all have to be you know removed taken off etc but what I really want to bring your attention to is this white stuff here now I'm not even going to put my finger too close to it yeah that is that's a mold fungus spores okay now the thing about fungal spores is they can dry out for years but when they get wet and somewhere warm they can reactivate start to grow again what I mean by this is yeah if you were to dust this sand it cut it and these go into your lungs they would be quite happy growing in your lungs and if you think you've got issues with MDF dust this stuff will hospitalized you and put your like rare tropical diseases wards see I'm even going to wash my fingers afterwards I hate it okay so you need to be aware of it yeah you need to be aware of what's on this don't respect cork yeah because there's it is great substance you know the stuff that you buy from Jarvis it's already been disinfected and cleaned and all that sort of stuff boy if you're buying it from like secondhand or buying from various suppliers yeah they don't clean this stuff off so you need to yeah so be aware of that yeah that speckled white sort of effect yeah basically give it a good clean and if you notice you ever bring it round yeah I should have done this side right let's have a look like straight off you can see these bushes here yeah yeah and if I bring it round there you can see it all that mold all around there yeah so just be aware of it guys now you don't want this in your lung so you need to clean it outside obviously on top of that yep any cutting sanding any Civet you know anything that generates an amount of dust yet you need to wear you just mask you need to do it outside this is not one of those I've got plenty of ventilation in it in my room around me in my studio yeah the biggest lie in wargaming that is no we have in this stuff you cut outside and off yeah you stand upwind from it and you wear a mask okay that's my safety warning if I'm telling this you know how I am you know I'm a bit you know what I'm like so if I've got to say that respect it now when it comes to cutting this sauce sort of stuff the cool bark itself is pretty soft if you look at it there's two sorts of bark yeah you've got the light yellow bar which is typical cord that's the stuff they grind up and chromatic and compress to make cork tiles and and watch one corks in bottles etc now it's very porous I mean cork itself is excellent at resisting water but the cork bark is actually designed to sort of soak it up because at the end of the day it's the bark is the method by which a tree takes moisture from the ground and it's route up to its leaves yeah so be aware that it will need sealing and that sort of stuff before we paint it yeah I when I do it typically after I've cleaned it disinfected it if I don't needed to disinfect it yeah then watch clear I typically seal it at the same time I'm stealing all my gravel I just coat coat this as well but yeah typically if the second hand they need cleaning Vinnie seaming you know I'll do it then because I'll be doing it with a disinfectant you know when it comes to the bark here you've got two sorts of bark you've got the core bark which is nice and soft and then you've got this quarter bark at the back that's okay the mold stuff I'm not really worried about yeah and this is tough as hell this really is hard okay and what that means is see if I can you see if I come round here yeah this sort of stuff I can break up with me fingers yeah it just breaks off yeah but this stuff is really tough so you need to look at what sort of cork you got and you can definitely see that the sort of line where you know the tougher bark is now yeah with that in mind you're going to need power tools to work with this yeah you can use normal saws and that sort of stuff yeah it's a lot of work I'll be honest with you power tools power Sanders is the way to go yeah outside or twinned video with a dust mask now once you've done all that you've taken it out you've cleaned it when it comes to cleaning it typically I use one of these yeah it's a barbecue cleaner a wire brush and it's just a matter of getting in there and scrubbing all the like and off and everything like that then what I do is I cut it into slivers you had two inch slivers okay typically because I'm working with two inch foam and I want to get that sort of I want to match the foam height yeah I also do straight cuts and then I'll do beveled cuts okay and bevel cuts they give me little lumps and they also give me little wedges that I can use to taper hills so once it's all been covering etc comes back and it looks pretty much like this I said cleaned up piece yeah and you can see where snap bits off yeah I'll give it a scrub and everything this hasn't been watching disinfected yet because there's no real mold on it and I'm you know I'll put a little bit in with PVA trust me but you'll get Co Tex cetera but this is a cup bit and if I just do this once it's sort of broken down you can see you know you can break it down you know further you know to make smaller pieces you know the cork is relatively easy you notice the big bits that posed a chat challenge this black bear yeah so there you have it there's cut now I'm going to try just waiting video time but anyway that's what it looks like cleaned up now obviously you're not here just to see it all cleaned up you're here to see it in a hill so let's head over to the in table I'll show you how to use this stuff to to make some terrain a right let's crack on okay guys all these pieces have been cut now and as you can see I've cut a couple of long strips yeah and I've got a couple of wedges yeah for the sides now I'm going to play around decide which I'm going to use etc it's important to note that cork really soaks off watch good moisture yeah and so it really needs sealing before it's painted now I'm actually planning on covering the entire hill with what should I grit and gravel etc and sealing that so I'll be sealing the core right then if you're not planning on sealing you gravel okay then consider what you're given these a good spray down with what toilet with a 50/50 mix of water and PVA yeah just to seal them because if you don't when it comes to the painting stage they're just going to soak paint and you will have to put layer upon layer on yeah so like say I'm going to see like when I put the grit and gravel on if you're not going to seal it if you're not doing that method and you just want to whack these on a painter you need to seal them first so give them a good spray of water down PVA so look at the pieces that one needs breaking up not really much for that one but this is a nice piece yeah see the rock texture you already see it yeah so if we put that there start I'm gonna look at these pieces so we could put that there but there's quite a large gap there isn't that yeah that one could easily go there I could prosper it no that's not going to go right all right as a general layout yeah but obviously we've got this issue here now luckily it's cork and like said in the thin bits you can break it down so just break it off yeah same over here that's a bit of a wedge so let's break that off you may have to revert to talk resort to tools yeah these little bits you're breaking off save them okay because what we'll do is once we've got our basic rocks lined up if there's any big gaps we can use bits like this and wedge them in yet fill the gaps so don't throw these away yeah they're just as useful yeah and you can even take it as far down is actually using these on bases okay corks brilliant for stuff like that so very quickly yeah that let me get that a shot so that's quite let me just mmm take that bit off don't need it yeah and then we'll bring that bit round there rack and could do with shaving that down a bit very quickly that's better yeah so there we have it there's our rock surface now let me just move that around so you can see it nice and clear okay and that's why our Hills going to go that's going to be the sort of cutaway of the hill next thing we need to do is to get actual phone okay so I've got expanded expanded polystyrene here this is insulation boards from a company called space board eco in the UK if anyone's interested I only mention that because every time I do a video with polystyrene yeah someone always watch it goes where you can phone from so yeah I get it from water wix's it's called space board eco and what I'm doing is I'm just lining these up at the very edge okay because I want to sort of save as much fun as possible it's a little bit tricky yeah so if I bring that round to there that's nice enough isn't it and then I need something to mark it with so I'll do I'm just very quickly yeah red pen but put it round you see that cracker slowly getting used to this camera guys yeah spin this round like that yeah brings down there I often actually do this but he'll watch your a can guys yeah maybe a bit maybe move it up a bit to be truthful get a bit more hold a staring over this side so swing that round there yeah that's a bit better right so next job is I need to cut this block out and at the same time what I'm going to do is as soon as I've cut this out I'm also going to draw a base on my watch with 6ml MDF here yeah and I'll cut that as out as well and obviously it's messy work so I'm going to do it outside so we'll come back once these bits are cut yeah Sienna said guys it's freezing out there but cut myself a nice big base look at the size of that that's gotta be a good rough 16 maybe 17 inches long yeah I've cut out my pink polystyrene yeah now it's time to start gluing things down now I'm not going to do the Polar Star me down by I'm going to glue the cork down the court block what I'm going to use for this is what - a hot glue yeah now you could use PVA it would just take forever to dry yeah and also unless your cuts are really straight you end up with some gaps and those gaps can be with PVA yeah unless you've got a really good joint it's not going to stick so stick with watch what stick with a hot glue so very quickly work out where my pieces are going to go yeah roughly dad you reckon does that look good to you I'd reckon yeah I put them there alright so get the hot glue and that's hot that's really hot okay put one piece there get this piece yeah I'm just literally just putting blobs down yeah as long as it's stuck you're good yeah put that piece there give it a little wiggle to make sure it goes down right okay and then finally we'll do this piece here and really website in because I want to make sure I get that join a bit where we we rip those pieces off yeah so they're all stuck down now probably could have brought them a bit closer to the edge to be truthful because that's quite a wide gap but Wolfville it don't worry see that's me concentrate I'm doing the tutorial not concentrating what I'm doing right guys the next job I've got to do is I've got to sort of cut this out yeah and feble this off so first thing we're going to do is get a marker and and just draw a line along it along here because this will tell me where my sort of top edges Oh course it's hot it's hot glue boosts yeah so they all that should do it and I'm going to cut out using my watch what hot Y cutter yeah and you know you look she can just start off start taking chunks off I thought that's a really pathetic chunk I don't even know why I did that yeah just to show you I've got a hot wire cutter ok guys what I'm going to do is I'm going to crack on and basically I'm going to cut this down and leave a sloped wedge yeah so I'll crack on with that and come back to you once it's done so as you can see by all the little strips yeah beveled all this down and it's just simple matter again you how Weicker I'm just going in layers and slowly working it down if you spin it around to the front you'll see that watch glare it's almost perfectly lined up it's just sticking out a bit okay and what I'm going to do after I've glue this down is quickly sand it and smooth it all off so we'll get those effect then so need to stick this down now yeah and I want to stick this down before I stand it yeah in this case because I want to be able to stand against points here so I can blend it in so yeah once again hot glue yeah now I'm hot going with polystyrene so watch the fumes guys yeah also let it cool down a little bit sometimes if it's too hot it can watch collect it come now the polystyrene or that much that there's nothing left to stick to so I'll quickly push that down now you can do this bit with PVA the only reason I'm not doing it with PVA is time yeah I've got a hot glue gun here and might as well use it yeah and so I can see I need to clean that bit up a bit more it's in place and very quickly dig that out of it and we'll blend all that in when we come to Sandy right guys next thing we're going to do is get some sandpaper so here we are on a sanding block and then it's just a matter of coming along with your sandpaper yeah I've got everything shaking and smoothing everything off and all I'm trying to do is make sure that I get these bits level okay and get rid of all the sort of strong ridge lines okay now this is going to shape the table too crazy so I'm going to crack on with this and we'll come back once it's all sanded guys okay guys as you can see that's all sanded down smooth now if a spin it round it's got a nice natural sort of slope to it okay now there are a couple of little places yeah there's a few gaps along here and there's this wedge here now run those little bits I told you about and we're tracking other no there possibly there how do ya that's what the little bits are for yeah a bit more in there actually and then go on stick there you go there we go so that's that bit done now with regards to these gaps okay you're never going to be able to perfectly meet up the polystyrene with cork cork is an organic watch but material that it's it's very uneven yes Oh get it as close as you can and then with your slivers yeah what you can do is you can break slivers off yeah get your PVA and this I am using PVA for because it's actually better yeah and just squirt it in and I get your slippers and just wedge them in yeah it's literally as simple as that yeah pee bit in the hole yeah and then get your sliver and push it in yeah now I'm going very quickly you see that yeah how they the little slivers fill up the gaps I'm going to do quickly now is watch clip I'm going to just going to fill all these gaps in yeah with me slivers and then we'll come back and I'll show you how to the next layer there we go guys that's almost slivers in you can see them all the way around there yeah that's just filled in all those gaps which means when I use the filler yeah I'm not got massive gaps after fill it's all little cracks so next stage is obviously filler and what I want to do is I want to blend these joins in I want to blend these joins in obviously but also yeah if you look here there's little gaps because obviously you know well I know I can't cut watch click all perfectly yeah there's little gaps I have to fill in around in that was only really that one yeah but I'll also use filler on that so when it comes to fill it obviously yeah I used budget stuff damp cloth bit of water yeah but really get your hand in get your stuff and just rub it in now I'm not trying to create the entire surface with filler all I'm trying to do is just blend it in those sort of lumps those these edges yeah and seal it all off so it literally is now the first stage I just want to push it in get gaps filled yeah if I can get rid of the lip yeah this time round great if not more than likely I'll have to wait till this dries smooth it a little and then come back in yeah and do another coat yeah but we'll see how we go okay guys that's the filling done and as you can see yeah what I've done is I've put fill around it and smoothed it off with you know some wet fingers yeah and it's just gone really nice and smooth and it's filled in all those gaps as you can see yeah so looking from the viewfinder okay with doing reasonable job of covering the lips and etc so I'm quite happy with that now at the front yeah we filled these gaps but very quickly a quick little tip if you get filler well on the rocks where you don't want it yeah get something like a cheapo brush yeah wet it and then just come in afterwards and give it a brush and what that'll do is it'll dilute the filler and it'll just clean it basically yeah the one problem with filler is it tends to be gloopy which in all honesty isn't a rocky texture yet so can you see that see what I've done there yeah and just literally by you know using a quick brush you can break that texture off now I don't have to worry too much about matching this up etc because we're going to be putting rocks and all that sort of debris and all that sort of stuff in front of it anyway I just needed to cover the big gap so that's all done now I do have to leave it I'm going to leave it overnight before I can do the next day so we'll come back to this tomorrow and we'll crack on yeah so I've left it overnight okay and it's all dry now and as you can see it's perfectly fine yeah you really start to see the sort of rocky texture of the hill coming out yeah what sort of trying to achieve with it as a couple of little bits that you need to do at this stage yeah where you may get is little bits of filler just going over the edge or couple of blobby bits at this stage you can just come along and because it's cork and it's just tiny bits you can just break them off yeah I've already cleaned a few off to be truthful yeah so just come along another thing you can do is look at sort of unrealistic sticky out bits like these bits here yeah I can just break these back of it make them a little bit more realistic it's gonna break don't think so yeah same over here that's okay that's right moving forward yeah the next stage is to add very well basically texture it up okay for this one I'm going to be doing is using various grades of watch clip I got gravel there grit medium grit and then find sand okay what I'm going to do is build up a texture on this yeah starting with the big stuff there and working my way down now the only sort of key important thing about placing this stuff okay is when it comes to building war games terrain especially pieces like this you place rocks strategically then randomly I mean by that is yeah use your rock who was it a bill bill bill Tory in a holic bill yeah he's got a saying he says terrain building is 50% building and 50% hiding your mistakes okay it's very much like that what we're going to do is we're going to use these rocks first just to cover up these gaps this sloppy bit here you know fill these gaps in yeah cover up the transition here there's if I remember correctly you can still see have a bit of a lip just there okay so I'll use rock piles there rock pile there as well just to hide these sort of little giveaway points that I eat sort of made if you know what I mean it's not natural okay so when it comes to placing rocks yeah use them to hide you sort of imperfections first and then just place your other rocks randomly key and then work through scatter now I'm not going to do I'm not going to video me sort of putting the grit on putting the author everything else on because I covered it all in the video when we made this one and this is the stylized wargaming Hill so what I'm going to do is I'm going to do a montage yeah and before we jump into our thorough link up to the tutorial on how to do this one I need to fix well put paula to toriel up to how I did this one yeah and then all these steps you know if you're not sure how to do they're all in this video guys yes so what Oh won't be doing now is very quickly just cracking on with this yeah and then we'll come back at the end and I'll show you finished to texture the piece we covered it in a little bit diluted PVA yeah and then we put in a large rocks first followed by our medium rocks and then covered it over with a fine grit and fine sand that was left for a little while before shaking off and it was then left to dry was it was completely Drive was given a coat in our diluted PVA a roughly 50/50 mix to give it a nice solid base and once that was pet done it was time to move on to the painting now with the painting I went through my four standard colors to put two rounds to graze the whole base piece was given a solid base coat of dark brown the rocks were then highlighted in a mid gray relenting with a light gray to highlight the dirt and to smudge the rocks to dirt them up and finally watch those dry brushing of light gray and a very light beige just to bring the rockiness back into the texture once that was all done it was textured up using our two-toned scrubbing technique to give realistic flocking and then after that clogged foliage was added so here's the finished piece in all its glory and there's a couple of bits that are still sort of drying a couple of it scum foliage but here you go okay and as you can see yeah it comes out absolutely beautiful so realistic and so easy to do yeah I mean you follow the tutorials took through beyond actually working with the cork yeah there's not much different than any other wargaming Hill to be perfectly honest the painting system was exactly the same as my other rocks you know that the idea of the two shades of grey the two shades of brown the key thing to remember is that mold the dust wear a face mask do outside guys maybe if it's secondhand or you know you're not sure disinfect it you know think your health with this guys but beyond that you know it's an absolutely awesome technique and like I say I mean look at that for results yeah ah well all those source a now guys is obviously if you like it if you've liked it yeah if you've got any questions any any comments any techniques you wanna share throw them in the comments remember I always answer my comments feel free to share this with anyone you think might find it useful and if you've got any feedback on the technical stuff of the vid or any video requests or just wanna say thank you yeah there'll be a link coming up in just a little moment yeah for my sort of request vid and feedback bit so you can put that on there in the meantime I'm going to crack on with the rest of this set and I'll see you soon guys you have a cracking one yeah all best Terra

Channel: TheTerrainTutor

Views: 331,652

Keywords: Wargames, Terrain, Scenery, Buildings

Id: sOy5yqctzzA

Length: 29min 16sec (1756 seconds)

Published: Thu May 07 2015