Useful materials and where to use them

Paint

This is obviously an essential item. When making scenery you will use plenty of paint compared to the amount you do when painting your models. A water based paint is the most useful. Those ones you used in school for art are perfect, not to mention pretty cheap. Just a few basic colors are needed - black, white, green, brown, yellow and you can mix whatever other colors you need. Cheap out those bargain stores, they normally have a range of these paints.

Glue

For scenery making you are normally sticking pieces of foam or cardboard together. PVA (wood glue) is perfect for most applications. Unless you are gluing metal to metal (superglue territory) then PVA is all you will need.

Foam

This is you basic material to create hills, rocks, and ruins can be made quite well with it. It is light-weight and easy to work with. There are 2 types of foam that can be used for modelling scenery.The first is the cheap expanded foam that things like fruit boxes are made out of. Your local fruit shop may be able to give you some if you ask nicely (take the broken ones if you can - bit of recycling).Then there is the more expensive foam that is used for building purposes and is of a high density, you may prefer this but obviously it comes at a cost.

Cardboard

Another cheap and easily obtainable material. It is quite useful for making walls and houses. You can shape it however you want with a pair of scissors. You can get the thin stuff from cereal/pizza boxes or thicker type from packing boxes.

Flock

Flock is just painted sawdust and comes in a variety of colors but for most purposes green is used. You use this to make all your grassy hills. Just paint some watered down PVA (about 50/50 is good) on your model and sprinkle it liberally to achieve a nice coverage. You can also use this technique to make trees.Most hobby shops will carry this.

Balsa Wood

This extra lightweight wood is easily cut up with a modelling knife and makes a perfect material to build houses, bridges and other structures. Use PVA to stick it together. Any hobby shop should carry it.

Paper

Paper can be used for a variety of things. Palm trees are quite easy to make from it, especially if you get some green paper.

Sand

You can use use sand in the same way as flock to add some texture to your terrain eg. paths. Or it can be added to PVA to make a textured paint for walls.There are different grades (sizes) which you may like to try. Hardware stores carry it, but if you walk past a building site it should be easy enough to find some. Try not to get the fine stuff that they use to mix with cement as it contains alot of clay and will not look as textured as washed sand.

Wire

Soft wire like copper or fuse wire is great to make trees and also looks good sticking out of ruins like mangled reinforcement. You can grab this at most hardware stores and sometimes supermarkets.A bunch of twisted wire makes a nice tree trunck and branches, that you can stick bits of sponge or paper to.

Twigs

Twigs are great to use for tree trunks (obviously!) a gnarly old looking one is perfect. A little dry brushing will bring out the texture.

Straws

Straws make excellent pipes, those bendy ones are quite good. They are extremely cheap.

Sponge/scourer

These are quite useful for make trees and bushes. Alot of scourers are conveniently green too.Ripping off pieces of sponge of and sticking them to a wire tree trunk makes some cool looking trees. You can flock the sponge too.

Spray paint

Although this is a convenient way to paint large things you have to watch out because it eats into foam! This isn't always a bad thing as the eating effect can make some great looking rock formations. A little spray and watch it mould the rock before your eyes.

Toothpicks

Toothpicks are another cheap item easily available that you can use to make a variety of things such as fences, roofs for huts, and fortifications for buildings.

Other materials

There are plenty of other materials you can find useful, just look around your house, outside. Things like toilet rolls, film canisters, fabric and other bits of junk, can all be used to make various scenery. It's amazing how a little bit of paint can change the look of these things.

If you have any other suggestions for this list please send them in!