Using traditional tabletop crafting techniques, making roofs full of shingles is incredibly time consuming. This is because each shingle is made individually and then glued onto the roof one by one. Ugh!
This doesn't fit the philosophy of TERRAINO tabletop terrain whose goal is to be easy to make while still looking great, inexpensive and also FAST to make. Gluing hundreds of individual shingles to a roof is never - ever - going to be a fast process.
This lead me to think of the problem from a different angle. What about strips of shingles? So, instead of applying individual shingles, you apply a whole row of shingles at once? I thought this approach made a lot of sense, but how to actually make those rows of shingles was still a mystery.
When it comes to designing for TERRAINO tabletop terrain, I almost always start with looking at the materials available to work from. This is because, if the materials are too expensive or too hard to get, they shouldn't be required to build TERRAINO.
I often think of the movie Apollo 13 and the scene where the mission support team on the ground is trying to make a CO2 scrubber from only the bits and bobs the astronauts have in their spacecraft. I approached the shingle problem the same way. What I ended up with was a solution that uses masking tape - an item any TERRAINOer already has - and printer paper - a material a TERRAINOer almost certainly has.
This solution also makes great use of masking tape's texture. Combined with Quickcoat paint, the shingles look amazing and detailed. For more info on the Quickcoat painting method and how it eliminates the need to do a wash and drybrush, check out the TERRAINO Dungeon Basics Tabletop Terrain Construction Manual.
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Check out the video above for exactly how to make my shingle solution. Have a different solution to making shingles? Leave it in the comments. I'd love to hear about it.
Happy Crafting!
Jake