Making "Ruin Corners"

2 May 2020

I've finished another of what is probably the terrain piece I've made the most - "ruin corners" or small pieces featuring the ruins of a corner of building. In the past I've mounted these on AOL CDs that we all get in the mail all the time. This one was built on the wooden box that the CD came in, which turns out to make a great base as well. Finally a use for AOL CDs! Read on for more.

These pieces are really meant for 25mm or 28mm scale, and work well in just about any genre that would call for ruined buildings. I've made a lot of these over the years, and the process is pretty much always the same. I start with a base of a CD or in this case one side of the wooden case that the CD came in. In these pictures is a 25mm LOTR figure (Legolas) from Games Workshop for size comparison.

Corner ruin w/Legolas

On this base I glue the two walls that make up the corner. I've made these out of foamcore in the past - this a very quick method that works out ok, although foamcore has very little texture to it. In this case I used some extra bricks from my Hirst Art's small brick mold built into a rough corner, with two layers so that both sides have the appropriate texture.

Corner ruin

They were then painted with a white base color, and then a wash of black was put on which made the basic grey color you see. A second wash applied to bottom two courses of the bricks, and wherever the first wash looked a little too light. Then I "highlighted" the cracks between bricks with black. The base itself was simply painted with a light brown acrylic house paint that I picked up a gallon of at the local DIY type store a while ago - it was in the "oops" rack and was very cheap. I apply sand and "reptile littler" (from the pet store) to give the base some texture, then apply a second coat of the latex paint to seal it down. Finally, I applied a dirty wash of brown and black to give the base some color variety. A slight watered down mix of white glue was used to apply the static grass. Last step - a healthy coat of matte sealant for protection - and all done!