How to: Jungle Undergrowth Terrain

Here's another jungle tutorial, unlike my other jungle tutorials I will also use some natural materials mixed alongside the commonly used plastic aquarium plants. Mixing these both materials creates a more dense and natural feel to the otherwise rather shiny look of the bright plastic plants and also adds more detail. For the people who already read my other jungle tutorials on how to make jungle trees and easy bamboo, some techniques will the same as they are useful for a broad arrange of scratchbuilding projects. Before we begin I have added pictures of almost all the needed tools and materials for this project.

Tools of the trade including your trusty stanley knife and hotglue gun

Collection of natural and artificial plants and foliage

The first step of the construction is to cut out the hardboard bases using a metal plier as shown in the tools picture. The material used for the bases is named hardboard but isn't the hard variant but the more cartonboard like variant which is used in sheets for packaging more expensive wood. After we have cut the bases we sand the edges to give us a nice and smooth finish.

Then we glue on some pieces of cork representing some elevation in the jungle floor and also creating variation for the later posing of the plants and other bits. When these pieces are dried we cover the entire piece with diluted woodglue and texture the piece with a mix of gravel and white sand. When this is dry we can now paint the piece. We paint the entire piece in a light brown color, followed by a drybrush of a cream color or the color you like or have on your tabletop. When the paintjob is done we can add the foliage using our hot glue gun and woodglue for the natural plants.

Here you can see the finished bases using a mix of natural and plastic plants. I must admit I don't know the names of the natural items used but I have seen them in many floral all year round or discount shops easpecially around festivities such as Christmas, Easter, Halloween, ... The items I know by name are the pine apples which make ideal jungle plants or palm trunks as you can see in the pictures above and the natural moss which really adds some density to the bases. I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and will start the construction swiftly.

More tutorials can be found here