Moving

So.

I am moving.  Out of an apartment and into a house.  Not even an online House O' Dork, a real house.  I look at houses as sort of the ultimate hobby accessory.  They provide so much room to store stuff and to work on projects.  As such my time to paint has been much decreased, what with the impending move and all.  So we're going to look at some older pictures today.  We'll be talking about scenery, a sometimes overlooked part of the wargaming hobby.  Specifically, jungle scenery for science fiction settings.

I spent a long time trying to get good looking jungles for my games of 40k.  Most model railroad trees are fragile and don't store easily. Homemade trees can look very good if done well, but most of the materials that are easy to use don't hold up well over time.  Eventually I found a solution, in the form of fake plants sold at pet stores.  These usually need minimal painting or other work on your part, they look suitably alien for a science fiction game, and they store very nicely. 

These are a few of my Imperial Guard, during a game of Warhammer 40,000.  The figures are irrelevant though, I'm here to talk about scenery.  It can be a very fun and potentially very cheap aspect of the hobby.  The alien jungles my 40k games usually take place in are made almost entirely of discounted items from pet stores.  The pet store and the local hardware store are probably the two best places you can go to shop for scenery once the local gaming store has been exhausted.  Basically this tabletop is made from cast resin "coral" meant for fish tanks and plastic leafy greens meant for reptile habitat.  Some of the aquarium decorations I found were giant oysters that look like they're straight out of Little Shop of Horrors.  I've left them all "loose" so that they can be arranged any whichway.  Usually this means taking a large, heavy resin piece and using it to anchor down a clump of lighter, flexible foliage.  The amount of stuff I've hoarded is more than enough for a decent size game, and can be had cheaply if you are patient, or less cheaply if you are in a hurry to create a table full of scenery.

Advancing through a felt covered clearing in a jungle of resin.

 As it is, for rather little money I can cover a standard sized gaming surface with oddball alien "plants" that look like something from a nightmare I had as a child.  Having that option is a big priority for most Americans.  Once you've got the plants collected to fill up the bulk of your table, you can fill in a few odds and ends and whatever specialized scenery the game in question calls for, such as a few generic hills, rivers or ruins.  Some of my ruins even came from the petstore too.  Pegasus Hobbies makes a great modular river for about $17.  This jungle didn't cost too much, I just had to look out for clearance items whenever I was by a pet store.  So there you have it.

Stay nerdy, my friends.