I feel they newer pieces are superior to the dark green fronds. I've seen similar tall grasses (though not as translucent) in South Africa years ago. I suspect a childhood memory is drawing me to prefer one over the other.

Either way the lighter tone seems more in sync with the full collection particularly shown by your more recent post. The jungle wet zone looks great

I used to have a large collection of small shrub bases like yours (I think I even have a photo of them in one of your threads) but using fish tank materials. Really regret selling them off before I moved when I see your full set altogether.

- Tael.

In fact on a case by case basis, I like the dark green ones better, and now you mention it Tael, that might very well be because our vacation house used to stand (still does) in the middle of a dark green fern forest But you should definitely keep making both of them, since just that difference in tones is what makes your board so astounding (and the rate at which you produce them- are you a high speed train?)

I don’t have quite enough to do a proper jungle table yet, but I am getting very close. I want to do one more round of plants and then I will do a complete jungle table shot.

I think that I agree with you, the lighter tones do tend to look better to me also. However, for me I think it’s because the lighter tones let in more light and therefore glow a little better than the darker ones. That being said, I also think that it is important to keep as broad a spectrum of shades as possible. To me this makes it look more natural.

I don’t usualy make any more once I have made the first batch, I just move on to another type of plant. I try and make as many of that particular plant as I think I will need while I have the assembly line set up. The reason that I can produce so many of these is that they are very simple to make. Once heated the plastic usually only takes a second to reshape, or several seconds with rewarmming time in between for a really complex one. They almost all are only painted in one color (the lighting effects mean that I don’t have to do highlights or shading). My bases are simply PVA and crushed rock that is left unpainted.

Personal preference is a strange thing with so many factors coming into the equation. Thanks, it’s always interesting to hear other peoples reasoning behind their opinions. I know which ones I like and why but hearing your reasons gives me a new perspective on them.


As individual plants they really aren’t all that impressive. Once you put them all together in mass is when the magic happens. I have made a wide variety of plants, some of them are very alien looking and others look like gelatinous versions of Earth plants. Strangely once placed together they seem to fit just fine.





These are the last two plants in this round, they aren’t my favorites, but they work fine mixed in with the others. The first one ended up looking a little spoon like for my tastes. If I were to do them again I would heat the spoons just a little bit longer. Also my glue is a slightly different color than the plastic used, and can therefore be seen. Some things just don’t showup until you have painted them.

The second plant is a very small unobtrusive plant that gets lost among all of the others. Unless you are looking for it you probably won’t notice it in the other pictures. I think that I really like the concept of the flower that I put on it. In the future I plan to make some small plants with brightly colored flowers to add a little bit of contrast to the rest of the green shaded plants.


Both of these plants were made from these small spoons that I found at a party supply store. If you are looking for a source of very cheap plastic, I recommend going to one of these stores. They had entire isles devoted to stuff like this, with many different sizes and types to choose from.

Ah, I didn't mean to say you should produce more of the same, on the contrary! I rather intended to say you should keep making both light and dark green ones, because the variation makes it work

My mistake. It sounds like we are in complete agreement on the necessity for variations in color.

This is my latest batch, not very many different types of plants this time, but I am very happy with these ones. I have a much wider variation in colors on this batch than in the previous ones. What do you think of these? As always comments, and suggestions are welcome.

This latest batch is the most impressive yet, thank you for continuing to post these for us to enjoy.

Most impressive. My gut reaction is oddly; alien aquatic realm.

The green "caviar cacti" look great.

The whole collection really syncs nicely.

- Tael.

Your welcome, and I am glad that you are enjoying them.

I received the following in a PM from mithrilI have not tried using a heat gun. I have tried heating the light diffuser that I used for the crystals; it did not go well I am sad to say. It got very cloudy when heated and developed lots of small air bubbles. I like your idea to shape softened plastic over a form. I have been playing with a similar idea after reading an article about making clear canopies for model airplanes that way. Too many other things going on so I haven’t gotten around to it yet.

They look very aquatic to me also. I was trying to make them look like a coral but the larger ones ended up looking more cacti like.

Caviar Cacti







The first step in making these is to spread a layer of plastic beads around in a dish and warm them in an oven.


Next step is to peel chunks of the beads up and role them into “cigar shapes” that are appropriately sized for the plants you are making. It feels like working with hot, rubbery clay. I did use some thin gloves for this since it required a lot more handling time than the previous techniques did.


The “cigars” were then joined at the base into one solid tripod. These were then used individually for the smaller plants, and joined together to form the larger ones. Fusing them together while still hot is the preferred method (no seams), but using hot glue will also work.


These were painted in about four different shades. I wish that I could say that this was intentional; sadly this is not the case. These are actually very porous since they are made up of lots of little pieces and are about like painting a sponge. I way underestimated the amount of paint required, then tried to make the leftovers from earlier batches stretch. I ended up using all of my remaining paint and had to make another trip to the store to finish the last plant.

All in all I am very pleased with the way these turned out. I was using leftover beads from another project so the colors were not what I would normally have used. The use of the orange and yellow beads seems to if anything, give the plants more depth. It’s amazing how much stuff is discovered by accident.

I had a lot or leftover handles from some of my earlier projects that only used the spoons and fork tines. I was going to save them and use them as trunks for some future trees but then changed my mind. These are very simple ones, nothing but rolled handles cut to different lengths. Sometimes something very simple can end up looking very good.


If this plant looks a little familiar, it’s because it is simply a more organic looking version of the crystals that I originally made for my sons Necrons.

These are all of the small flowering plants that I did this time around. They look a little strange all grouped together since they are intended to be spread around in amongst all of the other plants, to give them a little contrasting color. They were extremely simple to make since they are nothing more than some plastic beads mounted on a variety of different stocks.






As promised here are a few pictures of all of the terrain pieces set up at once. I now have enough gelatinous jungle plants to mostly cover a 4ft X 8ft table. I am not likely to ever actually play on it while it is set up like this, but it’s still fun to see how much table I can cover anyway. This has been a very fun project to work on, and I hope that you have enjoyed this log of how I did it.

Aye, that looks brilliant. I'd even fight through it as is

Not to sold on the flower pieces, but as you pointed out, their purpose of breaking up the uniformity in the vegetation is well suited.

Great tutorial on the creation of the cacti. Fun project and a delight to follow over the months!

- Tael.

It looks amazing!!

Every time I see this thread I can't help feeling that they must get knocked over a lot though
have you considered grouping them up on some larger bases?

I’m glad you liked the cacti tutorial. I think that they are my favorite ones.


These plants are actually very stable and don’t tip over very often. I try and scale the size of the base to the height of the plant to keep the tipping to an absolute minimum. The only ones that have any tendency to tip over are the bubble trees (since they are top heavy).

I actually dislike playing on large groupings of plants, so I haven’t considered it. How you mount your vegetation is very much a matter of personal preference, and the playability verses realism thing. I did a thread on this very subject earlier, called “Creating a playable jungle table and other terrain” if you are interested in my reasoning. viewtopic.php?f=21&t=15539

I thought that I was all done with this project; however some ideas are just too good to pass up. My wife found a mold in the cake baking section (for making icing decorations) with some wonderfully detailed leafs, and I remembered having seen this earlier. Anyway once I had the idea, I just had to give it a try.


I started by making a casting with the mold in dental plaster (what I happened to have on hand). I then added some handles to the back side using some dowel pieces, with a little wood putty used to support the odd shape of the casting.



I then cut plastic that I got off some old blister packages into appropriately sized pieces. These were then heated over a candle until soft enough, and then pressed into the mold with the casting. It takes a little practice to get the temperature just right, but isn’t too difficult. Basically if you get it too hot you burn a hole in it, and if it’s too cool then you don’t get any detail from the mold. As long as it’s warm enough to be pliable it will work. Repeat the process as many times as necessary, trim, assemble, and paint.

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You clever, clever son of a kroot ox. That is pretty darned switched on. Love it.

And you can just keep on washing it darker OR paint the leaf and have translucent edges... top idea. Time to check out the play dough aisle...

- Tael.

Thanks for the complement Tael (at least I think that’s what it was). This process opens up a lot of possibilities.




When I ran out of blister plastic, I then tried several different sources for plastic. I found that this soda bottle was completely useless for the press forming process. It immediately reacted to heat by bending and twisting instead of turning soft and pliable like the other plastic did. However when cut into strips, it was very easy forming it over a candle into organic looking shapes.

I was walking through the scrapbooking section of my local craft store looking for some of those crafting scissors that don’t cut strait lines when I spotted this. I can’t believe that I never noticed these before! The company that makes this particular punch also makes at least three other ones that would also be useful for making gaming plants. I wouldn’t be surprised if other companies also make a similar line of punches. The potential for making many different plants with this is incredible.


The punch is designed to cut paper so I had to do a little experimenting to find a plastic that would work. Blister plastic is too thick and wouldn’t cut. Softer plastics also don’t work because they tear instead of cutting. I ended up using some sheet plastic that I had leftover from an earlier project. It’s .005 thick and made from PVC plastic. I think that the plastic sheets that they sell at office supply stores for use in printers should work as well.
When the cuttings come out of the punch they are very two dimensional looking however a little reshaping over a candle fixes that very quickly. I mounted them on bases in groupings of six to nine cuttings, then flocked the base. These were incredibly easy to make but in my opinion they are very effective at simulating light vegetation.

Great find; I seriously need to raid my nearest (or largest) Hobbycraft store. These cutting tools and so on are great. I even discovered a certain hole punch style device that does industry standard rounded corners on playing cards for boardgames.

I think I need to make a VetSgt folder in my terrain archive exclusively, you've filled up the main one as it is.

- Tael.

I know what you mean, I feel like I just discovered a whole new realm of tools to use. I found another punch made by a different company yesterday, and I’m currently working on the next project using it. Hopefully I will get those up in the next few days,( if things around here allow me to work on it).


Here is a few more pictures for you to add to your terrain archive Teal. These extreme close ups are very hard to take since no matter what I do something in the picture is out of focus. What do you think of the new style vegetation when it’s grouped together? I think that I really like this style of gelatinous (light) vegetation.

Thanks Vet, downloaded as I organised said folder today

- Tael.