Making 3D islands for your Pirates games will surely add to the fun of playing the game. Making island can be done in many ways and isn’t that difficult
however I do get questions while hosting Pirates games about these islands.
So here is a short tutorial on how I make my islands.
Preparation:
For starters I take a sheet of foam, a marker, and a foam cutter.
The foam sheet can be of any thickness you like, you can stack sheets to make higher islands or you can use foam parts you find in packaging material.
The sheet I use is 2” thick.
The marker is used for sketching the island. (top down view) I made a simple form and split the island up in 4 parts. The “M” stands for mountains and
the “B” stands for beach.
Cutting the island:
First I cut out the whole island with the foam cutter. The lines I draw are mostly guidelines that can be ignored while you cut. (creative process I guess)
Next I split the island up into 4 loose parts like a kind of puzzle and take a slice of the beach section of about 1/3rd inch thick.
I mark the area of each mountain piece where it connects with the beach part before I start modelling each of the individual mountain parts.
The mountain or rock parts are given a irregular vertical structure by pushing and pulling the foam cutter. I take extra care not to cut the marked area.
The height of each mountain differs by simply cutting pieces off. I rerun the vertical cutting at least once where I do this half way up the rock at an
angle so the top of the rock gets more narrow.
The beach part is cut at the edges in a way that it is thin at the water edge and slowly goes up more inland. Since this part is quite thin it is fragile
at this stage.
Gluing and Sanding:
Once the 4 parts are glued together with wood glue and dried, I take the brush and simply poor some wood glue over the structure. At this point I have the
island on a flat surface with a piece of paper underneath.
With the brush I make sure the wood glue is all over the entire island in a thin layer. After doing so I first wash the brush with water so there is no harm
done to the brush.
It can be a bit messy, but after the glue is applied I remove the paper under the island. The island sits on this tiny piece of wood so lifting the wooden
surface , pulling the paper sideways until a part of the island sticks out over the edge of the wood and pulling the paper down will remove the paper from
the island. (Still have to be creative in not getting your hands really dirty though but practise makes perfect)
The island is still on the wooden surface where it sticks a bit because of the glue that is on the edges of the island and that is good while it does not
fall off that quickly while I apply the sand.
Hold the island above a container and start guiding a stream of fine sand from above on to the island. Before using the sand make sure bigger lumps of sand,
stone and shells are removed.
The island is now layered with a fine film of sand and has to dry overnight.
I made some small rocks to complement the island and after cutting them out I stick them on a Toothpick so I can apply glue and sand to it with getting messy.
The advantage of using the glue and sand technique is that it makes the island more solid and you get rid of the typical foam structure.
Painting and finishing the island:
After a black layer of acrylic paint (I prefer spray paint), I use 6 colours to paint the island.
Dark grey and light grey for the rocks, dark brown and khaki for the beach and finally some dark green and light green for the higher more level parts of
the rocks and the level parts on the beach. In the end it is all a matter of taste so this is just an example.
The final stage is to cut out the plastic sheet. This sheet comes from a store where they sell office supplies. It comes in different colours and thickness.
I used a semi transparent sheet but I can imagine using a blue transparent kind of sheet.
Placing the island on the sheet first and draw a line around it in order to sketch the form of the sheet. In this case the sheet represents the shallow
waters around the island. It has no effect on game play, the sheet is firm but thin so your ships can sail over it.
Cut the form out, glue the islands on and your island is finished. When you place the island on a coloured surface you notice that the colour of the surface
shines through the sheet so having a blue game table sure adds to the imagination.
Some ideas and or tips:
The islands can be made in unlimited forms. Before actually making them try to come up with designs that not only look good but improve game play as well.
As you can read in “Pirates the second table” I designed island with multiple beaches that are not connected with each other. You could in this way actually
divide treasure on more locations on an island where you also might have to explore more parts then simply the one according to the basic rules.
Making small loose rocks that are placed tactically, forces ships to manoeuvre and/or take longer routes to other locations on the island or other islands.
Plastic sheets can be placed on the playing surface to represent shallow water. See this as an island that you can not explore and you can not sail over it
but you can shoot over it. Be even more imaginative and make rules for certain ships that can cross depending on number of masts or cargo they are carrying.
Plastic sheets can also be used as clouds of fog that effects sight and prevent you from being shot at. Again let your imagination go free.
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To the second Pirates Table
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