Maxing the Mad, or how to make a Wasteland, part 1

So, this weekend, once the Thermocut guides from Geboom were assembled, I had a play around with the machine  (nothing worth showing, I just made variously shaped foam confetti to get a feel for the machine.)
After that, it was on to serious business: Making a start on my Mad Max inspired terrain for Gaslands.
This will be a project in two parts, as I will also be able to use the generic desert parts of this terrain for my DAK, once I return to that project.
I decided to start on the generic part first. Saturday I cut the bases for three sand dunes and two rocky hills/outcroppings. I used my shiny new thermocut to cut out the XPS-foam plugs that will form the bodies of the hills and dunes:

After that, I got out my trusty old handheld foamcutter and profiled the dunes:

After this step, the dunes were sanded to smooth them out and fade away the cutting lines.

In between I also carved up a loose chunk of foam, and gave it a paint wash to test a technique for striated desert rock structure. I'm still undecided, but I thing I'll just have to go off the deep end and try it on the full sized hills.

Hopefully I can cover the dunes in filler and sand the next weekend and maybe get a start on the rocky hills as well. Then I need to add some rocky outcroppings, loose rocks and patches of rough/broken ground and the core set should be complete.
Then it's on to the Gaslands/Wasteland specific stuff: Crude Oil/tar ponds, jury-rigged nodding donkeys and scrapyards shanties and barriers. Some car wrecks to scatter about. I'm looking forward to making that stuff! With some luck, I'll manage to make parts of it scale-neutral enough to also serve for Necromunda and Gorkamorka... In the least it'll be a good exercise for when I start on terrain for that.

See you next time!