Ok. I am not an artist by any means. I know there are people out there who build their own terrain out of Styrofoam or balsa wood or whatever. And they make fantastic pieces that look beautiful and are functional. I am not that guy. I am guessing that most of you are not that guy either.
There are at least two companies out there that make plastic molds with which you can build your own terrain for Dungeons and Dragons and even for Science Fiction games. Most people use dental stone mixed with water in the right proportion. You pour it in your mold and let it sit about an hour. When it is done you will have several pieces which you can glue together and to your base to make terrain. I made quite a bit of this but have not had the time to really build enough to use in game play. It is a time consuming hobby and I am waiting for retirement in a few years before I really start building a bunch of this stuff.
The process is pretty simple. The pieces are pretty cool. I glued mine to black poster foam board as a base and made some modular pieces that could be fit together during game play. I made short hallway pieces, door frame areas, corners, etc. Then as the party moves…you lay done another piece to show what they can see. Then lay down the bits of room or cave that they can see.
The company I bought pieces from is called Hirst Arts. They have molds in various styles such as gothic, Roman, Egyptian, Science Fiction, villages, caverns, floors, roofs, etc. There are tons of variations. They are, of course, reusable. Once you own one you can build with it virtually forever.
You get a decent discount if you buy more than one mold so pick out all of the molds that you want before actually buying any of them to save money.
I own both some of the dungeons and the caverns sets. I spray painted them after building pieces and then go over them later with a brush to make the dungeons look “aged.” I have seen some interesting color variations from others building this stuff. I chose Gray and Dark Gray but I have seen some unusual colors which actually look very cool. This made me regret my own choice of colors but to me dungeons should be gray and grayer so I stuck with what I began with.
This particular article has no affiliate links so I have not copied all of the various variations that you could possibly find. Instead I linked the main site so that you can choose what interest you to visit. Check out the finished dungeons and pieces that they have pictures for and search the web. A lot of people have made some very cool looking things with these molds. Creativity is unlimited.
