This weekend I will be traveling so I wanted to give a sample of the upcoming How To Make Ice Terrain guide. Making a piece of ice terrain is quick and easy so long as you have the right tools. Making an entire ice terrain landscape for tabletop gaming and D&D will take a little more time. However, this is still simple at its core. You may consider this a part one of the upcoming guide. First let’s take a look at some of the tools recommended.

Foam for making Ice Terrain

This photo depicts two types of foam board from different retailers. The pink foam can be found at Home Depot stores. The good thing about these square foam boards is that they are small enough to fit in your car. They are about 1 inch thick and can also be used to create modular terrain boards. More on that in another future How-To guide.

The second type of foam came from Lowes. It is a bit trickier to get home after purchasing because it comes in sheets that are 2×8. They’re not impossible to get home, you just need to bring a box-cutter with you so that you can cut it down into whatever sizes fit your vehicle. You’ll look a bit odd doing this in the parking lot, but hey, the things we must do for the hobby. Right? I like this stuff because it is 2 inches thick giving you more material to work with without the need do much layering.

Two types of foam shown from the links above

For the simplicity of making ice terrain we are obviously going to work with the blue foam. You can however still use the pink foam to create ice terrain. This will of course require some extra steps for layering with different paints to get the colors right.

Tools recommended

The simplest tool you can use to accomplish making ice terrain is a box-cutter or contractor blade. These are cheap and can be purchased for $5 just about anywhere. The drawback to using these blades to carve your ice shapes is that they tend to be more jagged. This works well for ice-spikes and jagged ice terrain. For more melty-effects commonly seen with ice I prefer the below tools.

A Hot Wire Cutter

a hot wire cutter

These are pretty simple tools that can be purchased from hobby stores and online retailers like Amazon. They aren’t wildly expensive coming in between $15 and $50. These are easy to use and effective. The main drawback I have found is that particular large cuts can be challenging because of the clearance caused by the back of the cutter. These would be ideal for terrain crafting. Especially if you’re creating small modular pieces.

A Hot Knife

Similar to a hot wire cutter a hot knife is a blade of metal (With no sharp edge) that heats up and allows you the ability to freely cut through materials. These are versatile and effective. Just like the wire cutter these are not expensive to purchase.

A hot knife

A Hot Wire Cutting Table

This is by far my favorite tool for cutting foam. It is versatile and there are accessories available to enhance the functionality. Similar to a band-saw but no blade. It simply has a heated wire in the center that allows you to cut your foam. This is the Proxxon table that I use. It costs about $125. It is the most expensive tool you will purchase for these sorts of projects. I would like to remind you however, that if you work with foam a lot it is perhaps the best tool in your arsenal.

My wire cutting table

A Torch

Lastly I recommend a torch. It doesn’t have to be fancy. something like this culinary torch is what I use. This piece is imortant because it will give you smooth spots on your terrain that represent the natural melting texture that large chunks of ice tend to have.

Creating a Sample Piece of Ice Terrain

So for this purpose i’ve pre-cut some of my blue foam from from the 2×8 sheet to a smaller size for my cutting board.

As a warning. You are burning Polystyrene! This is not good to breathe! Please do this only in a well ventilated area and wear a respirator.

A pre cut piece of foam ready to be processed

The first thing you’re going to do is cut down to the size you want for your terrain. Once this is done you want to go around the edges of the square. The purpose is that you need to make uneven and wavy cuts that will make it look like chunks of broken ice or melted ice.

Wire cutting in wavy patterns

Shaping the ice piece

It’s already starting to shape up nicely! as an added benefit the pieces that you have cut off can also be salvaged to make additional small pieces of terrain. As seen below.

Scraps salvaged to be used as additional ice terrain

Now that we’ve spent some time shaping up the terrain we’ll go on to the easiest step. It’s important to note that I spent some extra time shaping the ice chunk (essentially a chunk of glacier). Now it’s prepared for the final step.

starting to melt around the terrain

Because the foam i’m using is already blue there won’t be any painting steps needed. When you begin to melt the foam (lightly to singe it) the blue becomes an even darker blue. Giving it a nice final color that will be table-top ready.

Of course if you prefer you can still touch this up with some dry-brushing to really bring out the white on the edges. When it’s fully finished you can even brush on a glossy coat to give it that “wet-ice shimmer” appearance.

Below is the final product.

Final Thoughts

Keep in mind this is one single piece of terrain. In a modular setup you will have numerous pieces that all take some time to produce. If you’re looking at creating a very large table-scape then you’ll want to make numerous shapes and sizes. You may also want to produce some pieces that have a scattered snow effect on and around them.

I will be producing a full ice terrain set. This one piece probably doesn’t make anyone go “WOW!” The important take-away here is the PROCESS of how the terrain can be made. It takes virtually no time to produce each piece. Once you have the proper tools and an idea of what you want to create it is very easy to start crafting.

Lastly, i’ve added an included image below using a smaller scale of the terrain for miniatures. The ice terrain used for the miniatures was done using the PINK foam board. It was painted using a few simple paints. I’ve also added some texture and detail using snow and glossy ice.

Miniatures on new ice terrain example

Miniatures on new ice terrain example

If you like this sort of content and would like to see more please consider commenting and subscribing. I’ve got a host of upcoming posts in process. I’d love your feedback as a reader. Happy crafting!