Swamp Table Project: Lantern Bushes

Since Michael and I got into Infinity I've been tinkering around creating paper-craft terrain.  Mostly this was printing out patterns I found on the internet and gluing them to boxes.  It was a fun way to get my feet wet, but the quality was hit or miss and the durability was not great.  So I went down the serious terrain making rabbit hole (the Terrain Tutor to be specific). 

When I came up for air I decided that I was going to put together a scratch-built swamp table suitable for Infinity and maybe other things as well.  I've now made a lot of progress and wanted to share some pictures.

First up are what I like to call Lantern Bushes.  These were the first really interesting piece of terrain I scratch built and were very much inspired by a piece of what would normally have been trash.  I didn't have the swamp table idea yet but these pieces ended up fitting the theme.

Michael had a couple strings of lights under his old loft bed with these really nice paper coverings.  I decided that they would make great alien trees or bushes.  No need for paint.

I used chipboard as a basing material.  Painted it a bluish green and used some blue aquarium stones to give it an alien feel.

 

Roughly every other lantern was elevated on a plastic tube from the inside of a roll of doggie-poop bags.  I used modeling clay to form the root structures.  Some painting later and I had 4 pieces of larger scatter: Two pieces have two bushes and the other two pieces have 3 bushes.

The chipboard was not my best call.  As you can see in a couple of these pictures, the corners warped up a bit.  I did go back and try to warp it back the other way but couldn't correct it fully.

Below are pictures of the pieces with 3 bushes.  Higher resolution images here.

The next thing I tackled was one of the larger pieces destined for this table -- a ruined farm house.