Hill Construction

There are many sites that can provide instruction on how to construct hills. These sites recommend one of two techniques. The first of these techniques is the stepped profile, which tries to duplicate the contours found on maps. The advantage of this system is that troops can be placed on each level with no fear of the figures toppling over. The major disadvantage is that any sense of realism is lost.

The second technique recommends smoothing the contours of the hill so that a realistic slope is provided. The major disadvantage is that you cannot ensure that figures will not topple over when placed on a hillside.

I believe that I have come up with a technique that not only provides good looking hills, that don't have that wedding cake look, but also ensures that your figures remain upright!

Here is an example.

Materials

Extruded polystyrene

Cork tile

Fine and/or coarse sand

PVA (Aquadhere, Elmer's White Glue, etc.)

Appropriate acyclic paints (In this case green, yellow-green, dark brown and beige)

Sand paper

Method

1. Cut the polystyrene into the shape you want for your hill. In the example above I cut a circular shape. Using PVA then glue the polystyrene to your cork tile. The cork tile should be the exact same shape as the polystyrene.

2. Now for the part to ensure that the slope is not too steep for your figures to stand on. What we are trying to achieve is a 25⁰ slope. To achieve the optimum slope you will need to draw a line that follows the shape of the hill x number of mm in from the edge of the hill. The thickness of your polystyrene will have a bearing on how long the slope is. The table below will indicate how far from the edge you need to draw the line.

Thickness of Polystyrene	Distance from Hill Edge
25mm	50mm
30mm	65mm
40mm	85mm
50mm	105mm

3. Take your cutting implement, serrated edge knife or hot wire cutter, and start removing the polystyrene. The cork tile edge will act as a guide for cutting purposes. Once you have done that you will have a constant 25⁰ slope right round the hill. Of course you can vary the degree of slope by varying the margin between the edge of the hill and the line you draw. In the example above the slope ranges from about 20⁰ to about 80⁰. Finally, sand the edges of the hill to provide a smooth transition from slope to flat.

4. Paint the hill's surface with a 50/50 water/PVA solution and cover with fine sand. Allow to dry. Turn the hill upside down to remove any loose sand. If there is still any areas without sand coverage repeat the process. Using the sand/PVA mixture will result in a finish that is very resilient!

5. When the hill's surface is completely covered with sand, paint your hill in an appropriate base colour. In the example above I used a cheap acrylic house paint that closely resembled a pale olive green and was diluted to 50% strength. For Australian's this was Wattyl's Solargard Mist Green. The brown was Wattyl's Solargard Mission Brown, also diluted by 50%.

6. Once the base coat(s) has dried then it is just a matter of dry brushing the texture provide by the sand. In the example above I used Tamiya's Yellow-Green to highlight the green and Citadel's Bleached Bone to drybrush the brown.

Size and height of your hills is only limited by your imagination and availabilty of materials. The example above is the first hill I constructed using this method and I will be manufacturing others of varying shapes and sizes for our DBA project.

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Maintained by Greg Kelleher. Last revised 14 January, 2000.