Scenery model making

[Landlubber]

go option 1. you want the models to blend into the scenery, that way the scenery looks like it's supposed to be used for lego. If you cover it with enough models the scenery wont overpower anything anyway.

[Tordenskjold]

Hi folks. what is masonite ? im thinking of making landscape to my fortress and i wanted to have some height so this look intr.

[Capn Frank]

Col.,

I'd go with the basic lego colors and (if you are able) add some waves to the water (maybe some fishies) and rocks, twigs, debris, etc into the land. Main reason is that if you want to mix in some plates to mount some models, they'll blend in.

I'd go with option 1

Although if you're not going to have any blue plates in the water, I'd have the water a different color.

Also another consideration, try having the beach tan instead of yellow. It may look more realistic. I'm guessing the if lego made current beach models, they'd be tan instead of yellow. All the adventure sets came with tan instead of yellow in the desert sets (i.e. a really big beach :-D )

[Col. Whipstick]

Hi folks. what is masonite ? im thinking of making landscape to my fortress and i wanted to have some height so this look intr.

Masonite is a kind of processed wood/chip compound, usually you can buy in sheets and we all commonly call hardboard in most hardwares. It's quite thin but hard in the case of the sheets so ideal for baseplates. For actual 3D things like cliffs etc I'd probably use something else.

[Col. Whipstick]

lol, I see it's a unanimous vote for Option 1... the bad news is I ended up going for Option 2. :-D

I had the exact paint colours for option 1, but ended up taking them back and choosing 4 more natural tints - one for sea (deep), sea (shallows), beach and inland. Whilst using the exact colours would have been more lego it would also have prompted me to be very flat and exact in the laying of those colours onto the masonite plates and I kinda felt it would look a bit boring with flat colour.

So I have gone with Option 2 but extended the beach and shallows like lego never did and the colour is fused and gradual looking very natural and textured unlike the flat printed islands of official baseplates.

Now before you guys start chasing me around the room with a cutlass I have to say it's looking pretty damn good, reminds me of aerial shots from Google Earth. I'm still having trouble in the digital cam department so I'll get back to you with some pics but most the models seem to fit nicely into the look and feel and they are that bit more emphasised.

The other aspect to this is that these plates could now be used to display anything from regular hobby model ships to other varieties of pirate figures etc but strictly speaking the proportions and ratio is really lego sized *sweet*

The whole thing is sadly flat however as it is baseplates, albeit big ones and I've made it thus because the whole thing needs to be able to fold down and be easy to store... that's the builders challenge but I wish to make some 3D elements to help complement the environment. Okay in some ways it's complimentary to lego that lego is the only thing 3D on the scene but I do fancy some rocks jutting out of the water and a volcano or something. Your fellas ideas on what materials to use in this department?