Craters

Several years ago (well, pre-kids) I'd wanted some craters for miniature wargaming. You see, I'd been reading wargames magazines like Wargames Illustrated, Miniature Wargames, and White Dwarf, and seen many really cool pictures of wargames in action. In many of the pictures the battlefields had craters on them. Well, I just had to have some. Sure, I could have bought them, but half the fun of this hobby for me is making stuff. So I decided to see what I could achieve.

I actually used a stiff vinyl, the sort of stuff that can be used for kitchen floor coverings, as the base. My brother-in-law who works in the carpet-laying industry had given me a few small off-cuts so I found a way to put them to good use. The vinyl is slightly flexible so I would not suggest using it as a basing material for large projects. As the craters were only the size of coins it was perfectly acceptable.

I used a mixture of Milliput and sand to build up the crater ring and then textured it with the end of a toothpick. After that it was just a matter of painting it and then drybrushing to pick up some of the detail, plus a little flock around the edges and they were done. The largest crater in the picture is about 5cm across. Now I have craters that can be used on any battlefield from the gunpowder age to future science-fiction.