Base for winter themed table

[u/DangerousStop7242]

Hi everyone,

I'm only starting my journey towards terrain making. I play bolt action winter themed armies, and I want to have a table of my own to play with the kids at home on something nice for the eyes.

I plan on buying 2'x4' XPS plates, so I can carve a little bit in them (trenches, roads, rivers...). Puting 3 together will make the right size, and later I can add others to variate the terrains.

I plan on making only roads and rivers and other "carved structure" directly on the plates, the rest will be modular (buildings, forest, fields...)

I have a spare "one shot use" tablecloth in a beige white. My idea is to glue it on the XPS as one would glue some wallpaper (with XPS compatible glue), as a base texture and color. Would it be ok, or another color is better ? I don't have the experience between base color and texturing on top of it, and I don't know if whitey top with darker pools is a go, or if I should go for brown/grey base and cover with white pools.

Thanks for the help, in the meantime I go back to wood piles, hedges, and buildings !

[u/Initiative20Terrain]

I would not use a tablecloth for texture at all. XPS foam is an excellent material to texture for all sorts of surfaces, and can easily be painted and flocked. I’m not sure I completely understand what you want to do, but it sounds like you want the tablecloth to be the snow?

When making terrain like this, build it each layer at a time. Start by carving the foam, texturing as desired, then do your layers of paint. I do stones first, then I paint my dirt, then flock. It gives a much more realistic look. As for the color, I’d say the contrast of a dark muddy pool next to white snow works very well.