Spider Forest and Spiderlings

Scenery of the Day

Today we look at a real simple terrain tile of a horror themed 'forest' . and also a lair for horrific little spiderlings.

Starting with a 4x4" canvas board, simply make up some twisted trees using super sculpy, quick spray paint and  then apply a some different types of flocking.

Once thats all dry, apply thick spiderwebs using the magic ingredient ...

A piece of cheap stocking !

A little dry brush of silver over the threads of stocking to make it look a little more like spider webs.

I used a section of beige coloured stocking on this one, which looks old and musty, but a white or silver coloured web would work even better.

This horrid terrain was inspired by a place I found on my last camping trip ...

This stuff is just horrible - its thick and impossible to make progress through, and goes on and on and on for miles on end.

... In every direction.

To make it even worse, the whole place is full of insects ... there is a great huge spider web hanging between every single pair of branches.

Rocks, scorpions, stinging insects, and spiders everywhere !

Some of them are easily visible ... others not so visible.

The ones that you can see are never the problem though.

And they are friggin HUGE !

This one is about 3" across from the tips of the legs. (Yeag I know - I should have held up a ruler next to the beast to prove it !)

But they are after all quite harmless - these being 'modern' spiders of the genus Araneomorphae, or something like that. Effective web builders, and ugly as sin ... but not dangerous.

Not aggressive, and not poisonous, so its sort of OK to pick your way through the spider forrest, of you are that way inclined.

The worst part of the dead-woods is that its so thick and hard to work through that you have to zig-zag your way through, and coupled with the low visibility, it would be pretty easy to lose your bearings.

Always keep an eye on the sky to keep your bearings under control if you do happen to find yourself in a place like this.

But I digress .....

Luckily there are heaps of very nice areas to pitch a tent without having to go anywhere near the horrid regions.

Its not a place you would want to walk through at night though ...  eeek !

So lets make some spiderlings to emerge from the model forrest.

These are deceptively simple to make - I just make up some random shapes with sculpy, and baked up some leg sections as well to construct spider-looking creatures to mount on bases.

Its a ....


Im not really sure, but it looks horrible.

Painting over some gloss varnish in sections to make it look like shuny chiton coverings that you find on horrible crawling things.

Real simple, and (I think) it looks like a real crawling horror.

And a few reddish bands on the legs for the gaps between segments.

Here is a base of amphibious abominations made up from random bits of sculpy.

Not too sure what this is either ?

Here is how the forrest starts life - real simple collection of twisted bits of sculpy glued to a board.

And similar with the crawling things starting life as sections of sculpy glued together.