Making mountains

 But not out of molehills!

As a break from painting, I decided to go with the mojo and attempt to make a mountain.

I had been mulling over creating some mountain pieces as a sort of 3d scenic backdrop. The Soldier King map has some squares / boxes  which feature a natural defence bonus which are situated in a mountain pass. I wanted to suggest something impassable that normal wargames hill methods were unlikely to convey. I could have deemed the board edges impassable, but wanted something tangible and more 3d than a flat backdrop.

There are other uses; I have an unpainted collection for WW2 Yugoslavia and mountain passes feature in many historical battles, such as Thermopolae.

I had contemplated something along the lines of the Tremorden Reddering method, but didn't need the steps for figures to stand on:

https://bobscolonialwargaming.blogspot.com/2009/08/hills-and-mountains.html

So I set to with a vague plan. Like most such projects, it was trial and error with some impractical ideas abandoned almost immediately. I had an idea of the dimensions and initially planned a flat sided series of three mountain pieces joined together. Experimentation revealed I could create something with sloping sides......

Here are the trial efforts having just received a first layer of brown paper. The shapes are just cardboard packaging (folding book wrappers are very useful with a built-in fold) cut to shape and bodged together with masking tape. I have been stockpiling materials and brown packaging paper for just such a purpose. 100% recycled mountains! They have not come out too bad and with a bit more work should be passable (inadvertent pun!)