This article is for those of you, who, like me have very little artistic talent, a small wallet and don't really worry too much about realism or detail, but, you do want something to spice up your battle field and improve playability. The hill I am going to show you how to make is by no means the best in terms of realism or artistic quality, but it is easy to make and still looks reasonably impressive (well I think so anyway!).

With regards to equipment, you can probably get polystyrene from your local electronics store, just ask them for old bits they're going to throw away; usually they're happy for you to take it off their hands. The poster paint I talked about above is simply the sort of stuff you use at primary school when you do your little masterpieces that mummy puts on the fridge for everyone to see.

You don't have to have the rocks, but they do add a bit of 'prettiness' to the hill; so it's nice to include them.

Firstly you want to decide on the shape of your hill. My one was made to fit on the corner of the field, but you could make yours round and put the hill in the middle, or have one straight edge and put it along one side of the field; it's entirely up to you. I like the idea of the tiered structure that I've seen elsewhere, and this is the best way to make a tall and imposing hill that will stand out and add a lot of effect to your battle field.

Once you know the shape you want, it's a good idea to draw it onto the polystyrene with a felt pen; don't try any other kind of writing implements because you will just gouge holes in the poly.

Now, you can cut out the shape (or shapes if you are going to have tiers) using either a hack saw; very messy but it works fast and easy, or a craft knife which will need to have a long blade so you can get right through the sheet.

Next, I shaped the sides of the levels like rock, trying to make them look like cliffs. To do this, just gouge out pits and cut sloping bits into the top and bottom edges to make it look like a rock face. I found this easiest to do with a Swiss army knife, but you could use a craft knife instead if you don't have one.

Also, I wanted to have some 'ramps' cut into the stone so you can move models up to the next tier without them having to climb or jump up the face of the rock. This is easy enough to do with a craft knife or hack saw; just draw in the width and depth of the 'ramp' and carefully cut it out. I have drawn some diagrams for you to see the way I did this cutting as it can be a little tricky:

Finally sand down all of the rock and ramp surfaces to smooth out the polystyrene. This makes it look a lot more natural, and makes the painting process a lot easier. It is much more difficult to get good paint coverage on rough poly.

Notes: Often with terrain pieces, people like to put their piece on a base of cardboard or something similar. Although I chose not to bother, by all means do this if you wish. If you've made several levels for your hill, now is NOT the time to glue them together; it is much easier to paint and flock if you leave the assembly till last.

If you have gone for the single level, paint the whole top of the hill with green, either the poster paint or your choice of Goblin Green or Dark Angels Green. The choice of green depends on the shade of flock you want to put on the hill; if you're going for a darker shade, Dark Angels Green is the choice, but if you want a lighter coloured flock, go for the Goblin Green.

If you have opted for the tiered idea, paint the whole top of the top level green, and then paint the lower levels, leaving out the areas that will be covered by the upper sections. Another possibility is to leave the levels as separate pieces, making for a more versatile terrain piece. If you want to do this, as I did for the top level of my hill, paint the whole top of each tier.

What you may want to do next, which I have done, is paint in a road leading to the top of your hill. This, added with the 'ramps', makes the hill look like it has been used as a defensive position many times in the past, and so adds a bit of fictional history to your piece. Paint the track in using Scorched Brown or just brown poster paint, and then sprinkle on some modelling sand so that it covers most of the track, but still leaves some brown showing. I left off the sand due to cost and laziness, and I think it still looks respectable so if you're feeling cheap, you can save money this way and still have reasonable look to your path.

Next, you need to paint the rock face on each tier. Either give it a base coat of Codex Grey, or mix up some black and white poster paint to a dark grey colour and paint it with this. Once the base coat has dried, mix Fortress Grey with Codex Grey and apply a highlight, and finally dry-brush all of the rock with Fortress Grey. If you're using poster paint, simply mix up a lighter grey colour, highlight, and then make one more even lighter grey and dry-brush the whole thing.

Unfortunately I'm not much of a painter, and it is difficult to get a good effect on polystyrene when it is this rough, but hopefully you can do a much better job than this!

Just as an aside: with my poster paints, I got several old plastic containers (peanut butter jars, honey jars, hair gel jars etc.), cleaned them out and put in my mixed colours so that I can keep them for other projects. This way, I can make several terrain pieces using the same colours, and I only had to mix the paint once.

Now, just give all of the upper surfaces a thin coat of PVA glue and sprinkle flock over the hill. It's a good idea to do this in sections so that you don't get your glue drying before you've put the flock on.

You may want to think about the shade of flock you want to use. I mentioned this in Step 3 with regards to the green paint. You will probably want to use the same colour flock as you use for your minis so that they fit in well with the terrain. I used a dark shade as this is a similar colour to my table tennis table, and it is also the same colour I use for my minis.

By this stage you have a hill that is quite usable and will look good on your battle field. However, you can add in some extra details to make the hill slightly more realistic and good looking.

A nice touch you can add is to glue flock in small patches onto the rock faces, to give the effect of moss. Also, you can put patches over top of your track to give the impression of grass struggling to grow in the trampled ground.

Secondly, you can add some rocks to the hill. Just take some matchbox-sized rocks from your garden or off the side of the road, and paint them the same as you did the rock faces on the hill. This paint job is a lot better than I did on my hill, it's much easier to paint real rocks.

Lastly, you may wish to add some shrubbery or perhaps a tree or two. I'm not much of an expert in this area but there are lots of other articles on this site and others that will show you the best ways to make these.

That's about all I have to say on the matter. Like I said earlier on, feel free to add your own ideas to this project and create something completely individual. I hope you enjoy making this hill and have many a good battle game incorporating it!