Welcome to the Jungle Baby...

               

Here we have probably our greatest and most pain in the butt project to date. The living jungle table.

The table was built to support not only the weight of the soil, and plants, and quickcrete used to fortify the river, but the wind, rain, and snow we have in abundance here in Northwest Connecticut. Weighing in at a guestimated 540lbs, this is definitely a permanent fixture of the back porch here, but totally worth it.

The interior of the table was lined with spray on bed liner to protect against rot and water damage, drainage holes where drilled, and then we began work on constructing the shape of the river.

The main channel of river was cut out of 2" insulation foam, shaped to fit the outline we drew out on the table and then covered in layers with quickcrete for the lovely stone effect but also to make it as water tight as possible.

To create a flow of the river, we decided last minute to construct the waterfall on the far corner.

Digging around the garden at my house I found little some really awesome varieties of moss as well as pachysandra that looked like little palm trees. It grows like wild fire and had was great ground cover in the backyard.

And with a little loving and supervision, it's going to be quite the thick masterpiece!

Now that flat area you see at the bottom of the picture is going to be a U.S. Army/Vietnam style firebase with trenches, guard towers, hooches, things like that. The other side of the river is going to have an uphill battle for sure assaulting the base, but all is not lost as I have a few special projects I am working on to give them their own advantages in the assault...

There is also work being done to built a basilisk emplacement as well as different avenues to cross the river besides JUST the bridge.

One Small Step For Man...

Moon scaping...

 So here we have the finished product of our crater spattered moon scape table.

it is a 4'x8' table standing approximately 32" tall to the table lip, and the actual terrain levels raise up about 8" off the table.

The Cliff faces are considered difficult terrain, 1 level. So no non-skimmer movement up and down the cliff faces, only by utilizing the bridge and ramps.

It began with a lot of foam, a foam cutter, and the death of a few thousand brain cells...

Using sheets of 2" insulation foam, we carved out the general features we were looking for, adding texture and detail to the edge of the cliff face for depth, and just to kind of break things up. Shallow lips were left at the base of the different ramps to allow for building up the terrain with rocks and sand.



And then, there was spackle.

Once the general frame of our standard table was constructed, the foam itself was inserted into the basin, and spackle was used to smooth over the seems for the foam boards, and to blend the base of the craters into the terrain itself.

                          


Let there be rocks...





Sand and gravel was then added along the edges of cliffs as well as across the flat hill tops to give it some texture and detail, as well as providing better grip for model bases on ramps and hill sides. Red spray paint was added to as an undercoat to give it the "Mars" look we were going for, before highlighting colors and sand/gravel were added.

And  then you are left with the final product...

Who are the two guys with a shovel?

Great question! We are Will and Ken, 40k Players and amateur terrain architects. Our work is mostly based out of "Batteries Not Included" in Torrington, Connecticut, USA but we're not opposed to a little travel.

We have done a variety of projects so far ranging from:

• Basic 4'x8' table construction
• Simple woodland terrain: hills, rocks, and tree's
• Army specific pieces: Necron obelisk spires, crashed land speeder objective markers, etc
• 4'x8' Imperial City Sector
• 4'x8' Industrial Complex (work in progress)
• and our latest, nearly completed, rocky moon scape.

Here are some of our highlights! 

One of our standard, sturdy, 4'x'8' tables. This one in particular went on to become our "Cities of Death" table.

The rocky, crater marked surface of a hostile alien world.

One Small Step for Man...

Counter-Fire Battery preparing to stave off the Xenos Assault of Calathrax IV and the Cathedral of Saint Benson.

Snow dusted Imperial Ruins.

 Imperial Industrial Complex

 Rock-faced hill crest

                                                                            Small Pond

Another shot of snow dusted ruins in our city-scape.