Roads? Where we’re going, we don’t – er, yeah, actually roads would be helpful

Next up in my outdoor terrain projects was a series of dirt roads and trails. I wanted to be able to depict the wide and well-traveled, the narrow path through the forest, and something in between. A set of 1″, 2″, and 3″ pieces seemed like they’d cover the requirements.

For many of my projects I start from inspiration from Black Magic Craft, DM Scotty, or any of a number of others, but on this one I didn’t see many videos about dirt roads that appealed to me. Most were part of big, fixed scenery or lined with massive amounts of flocking. I just wanted paths that would sit on my terrain board, with plants and other decorative bits to be provided by separate terrain pieces eventually. (I did end up dropping a few little stones and a bit of grass on them for experiment’s sake.)

So for this one, it was largely a roll-your-own effort.

Squiggly lines and curly boards

Luckily, dirt roads don’t need to be symmetrical or even particularly straight. All I really needed to worry about was that each slice of road started and ended at my choice of 1, 2, or 3 inch width – everything else could be essentially just some wavy lines. I also wanted a few curving sections of each size, which would have the same requirements. Starting with some 12″ squares of medium chipboard, I measured and marked down each side the size of the edge sections I needed; then I just squiggled my way across to meet the marks.

I started cutting them out…

… until I had a collection of road lengths and a few corners and intersections.

The next step was the messy one – I started slathering joint compound across the pieces, spreading it along what would be the path of travel to create the illusion of wagon ruts and natural variations in the terrain. I’ve since been told of joint compound that it’s not great for durability on a surface that’s going to by played on and moved around, so if I do something similar again I’ll probably try a latex caulk instead.

The big problem with the joint compound, though, was the warping. I expected some curling of the chipboard from the moisture it absorbed and from the shrinkage of the compound as it dried, but I didn’t expect it to curl quite so much. Supposedly when working with chipboard one way to limit such warping is to coat both sides to equalize the bending force, and I did mod-podge the undersides… but it wasn’t enough. My daughter saw them drying and asked if some of them were going to be bridges! Spending some time flattened out under heavy things worked out enough of the curl to make the pieces usable.

I started to sprinkle some sand across my roads-to-be, but to my eye at the time that texture made it look like it was loose gravel rather than packed-down dirt, so I brushed most of it off. I added a few little clusters of rock on several of the pieces – bits of stone in the path that nobody bothered to clear away, I suppose – with the intention of putting little bits of grass around those because travelers would avoid stepping on the rocky areas.

So, yes, at the time of this picture, my roads looked like twisted blotchy white bacon strips with a smattering of rabbit droppings.

Making them presentable

Some further progress in straightening, combined with a coat of black-and-mod-podge, made them a little more presentable.

After still more straightening, I started with a coat of dark brown paint. I followed that up with a not-quite-dry-brushing of a slightly lighter shade, then two more lighter brushings of progressively lighter browns. I also tried to coat a little more heavily toward the center to make it look like the middle of the road was more worn than the edges.

The stones and grass don’t look very good by themselves, as it turns out, but they’re not horrible on the board with some other green around them, and I suspect that as I add move into adding plants and other scatter terrain so they don’t stand out quite so much, they’ll look better.

Overall not horrible for a something an inexperienced crafter more or less made up on the fly. It’ll do.