Terrain- Streams (& Culverts)

 After making my rivers, I knew that I’d then want to make some streams using the same principles, just in smaller scale. I was also interested in making a set of culverts to allow the streams to pass under my roadways. I got the idea from a blogger called The Tactical Painter, whose blog you can find here. Using his excellent tutorial as a guide, I decided to make my own culverts, and produce some sections of stream to go along with them. As I set up my stuff to begin, I also thought, why don’t I do a ‘how to’ post into the bargain?!

So here we are, my first How To post. I hope it’s useful!!!

I made the bases for the culverts and streams from the same waterproof tablecloth material that I used for my river sections. It’s hard-wearing and flexible- I like it because it can follow the contour of a gaming table, and will work particularly well for strips such as this. Onto the strips, I glued stones and gravel to mark out the streams themselves.

For the culverts, I cut strips of foam board, which is a material I use a great deal, and carved out an opening to represent the channel in the culvert.

For a bit of variation, I included a small footbridge on one section, constructed from a strip of coffee stirrer and some BBQ skewer lengths. After that, I gave everything with a black undercoat. 

My next step was to add texture to the culverts themselves. I wanted them to be rough stone, so I decided to use the same technique that I’d used to texture the walls of my church. I applied filler to the outside surfaces of the culverts, and then stippled them with an old brush with short, wiry bristles. This produces a nice effect, which I think looks great once painted and drybrushed.

It was then that I realised that I could have waited to do the black undercoat until after I’d applied the filler. Hey ho. I then painted the culverts black once the filler was dry. I took a photo of this, but it’s not a crucial step for me to show you, I think… (Facepalm).

I then moved onto texturing the stones. As with my rivers, I drybrushed these in two stages, followed by an ink wash. First I applied Citadel’s Mournfang Brown, followed by their Xandri Dust. I had given the wooden footbridge a basecoat of Army Painter’s Oak Brown between these two drybrushes, and it too got the Xandri Dust treatment. After that was dry, I applied a good layer of Agrax Earthshade over the whole lot.

The next stage was to paint the culverts. I basecoated them in a grey emulsion I have in a tester pot from a local DIY store. I’ve got several different shades, and any one of them would have done. A couple of coats were applied to get an even colour. 

At this point, I also added tiles to the upper surface of the culverts. These are cardboard tiles that I cut in the hundreds to use as roofing ridge tiles and for the tops of walls, pavement curbs, etc. I knew they’d fit in here. I painted the tiles using Army Painter’s Necromancer Cloak and then drybrushed the whole culvert with Vallejo’s Pale Stone. I tied the two grey colours together with an Agrax Earthshade wash afterwards.

Similar to my model basing, I then painted all grassy areas with a coat of burnt umber. Once dry, I applied grass with PVA, avoiding the gravel and the water channels in the middle. To the water channels, I drybrushed/ stippled a small amount of Vallejo Black Green to add some variation of colour and tie into the watery colour I used for my rivers. (Notice, I also cut away some of the Culvert bases. I did this on a whim, but think I prefer the smaller footprint.)

Once this was done, I decorated each section with tufts and little clumps of scatter foliage. After a spray of matt varnish, the final step was to apple Vallejo Still Water to the water channels/ streams to give them the shiny water effect that the matt varnish would have dulled if I’d done it previously.