Eldar Forest/Hills Display

• 10mm extruded foam board
• 30mm extruded foam board
• PVA glue
• Contact adhesive
• Clear spray varnish
• toilet roll paper
• hot glue
• Woodland Scenics tree armatures
  • 3-5“ Deciduous set (TR1122)
  • 2-3” Deciduous set (TR1121)
• Woodland Scenics clumb-foliage medium green (FC683)
• WWS North Europe grass 2mm
• WWS North Europe grass 6mm
• WWS dry earth
• Assorted fine/coarse sand

The boards cut out and layers stuck together with hot glue:

Covering with toilet roll paper soaked in watered down PVA glue (approx 10 parts PVA : 1 part water). This both protects the foam boards / gives the base a really tough finish when dry, but also gives the surface an uneven, less artificial texture:

Priming with a mix of PVA glue, tan paint and fine sand:

Base coat dark brown:

Adding coarse sand and gravel around base of hills:

Painting sand and gravel:

Several layers of lighter browns applied via drybrush techniques to hills, rocks and gravel:

Grass clumps stuck in place around hill edges:

First layers of 2mm (centre area) and 6mm (edges) static grass:

Second layer of static grass applied, along with little bits of dry earth:

I'm using two sizes of trees; 3-5“ and 2-3”. This first lot are the larger set from the Woodlands Scenics 3-5“ Deciduous range (TR1122).

Bending armatures into place:

Prime in dark brown/grey:

Drybrush in light brown/tan + brown ink wash:

Clump foliage stuck to branches (branches coated in Evo-Stick contact adhesive) and then dusted with fine blended turf (dusted with varnish so that it will stick):

Larger trees glued in place:

No pictures of the smaller trees (2-3” variants), but they were done in exactly the same method.

Portal monument cut from 10mm foam and sealed with PVA glue:

Priming:

Painted and weathered:

Static grass/moss added:

Complete, minus painted sides of the foam bases:

Sides painted and monument terrain piece added:

This shelf will probably need an extra LED lighting strip adding to make up for the shadows cast by the large number of trees.

With an additional loop of LED lighting installed on the shelf above, the diorama looks much better and should give the figures plenty of light when they are displayed:

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