Foamex – the new wonderstuff!
We’re a big fan of Foamex. It’s an amazing plastic to work with, can be heated, cut, sawn, drilled, carved, hammered stamped and engraved. The material is soft yet sturdy making it a perfect medium for gaming layouts, terrain, walls, bases and backdrops.
We did some test pieces to show how these could be textured and painted. They hold paint with or without primer, but we recommend using a primer to allow for more vigorous game play. Also, using a sealant is recommended for durability when gaming.
Moonhopper supplies Foamex tiles in two sizes: MG0008: 150mm squared and MG0009: 300mm squared. By using the 300mm squared tiles, with just 12 you can build a battlefield 1.2m x 09m – a decent sized arena.
By using our Foamex Jig, you can easily place holes in the sides of the tiles precisely in order to insert either magnets (we’d suggest our GT5500 Neodymium Magnets) or pegs. Once the holes are made, adjust accordingly, insert and glue (or seal) your magnets in place, making sure that the opposing magnet for the next tile is of the right polarity. It couldn’t be simpler!
Use the jig to create holes for the Neodymium magnets, so you can join tiles together.
Naturally we had to create a number of Foamex scenes to prove how versatile these are, so here are a few others that Charlie, our resident Paint Pixie created to do just that.
Hills and valleys
“Here, I used extruded polystyrene to build up the platform areas, based everything brown and added some DIY turf and stony ground cover.”
Ice Terrain
“Again, I used extruded polystyrene to create the iceberg platforms, painted white and added grey for depth and simply painted the base with blues, greys and whites using a sponge. A very simple effect that produces a very effective result!”
Boggy pond
“Here, the outside was built up with water and PVA soaked paper towel pieces, the rocks were Dammit Granite, and the green toxic pond in the middle was made from glue gun dots, paints, acrylic inks and a clear acrylic gloss.”
Cobbled Wall
“I used a dotting tool and engraver to make stone marks and cracks, adding greys, browns, yellows and turquoise. I’m quite pleased with the end result!”
Industrial/space age
“This piece is mainly silver in colour with a battle bronze background. To do this, I cut the foam shards out with a table saw and engraved the detailing on. The hot glue gun was my friend for this one, as there were lots of platform parts to this.”
Simple Road
“I cut some side pavements to build up the edges of this tile, painted with greys and black. I then added in some of our Ruin Dust technical paint for texture, and painted in some yellow lines. To finish, we added some debris and a wire spring to simulate barbed wire.”
Wasteland
“Once again, I was a bit handy the table saw, cutting pieces of Foamex to suit, although you could use also large craft knife if you have a steady hand. I used earthy tones here, engraved some texture to detail, and added a few grass tuffs for interest.”
To sum up, the possibilities are endless with these simple and inexpensive tiles. We hopefully have given you a few ideas to show what you can build with this wonder material. You could use both sides if creating just 2D tiles for backdrops or simple painted terrain. Storage wise, these are both manageable and modular. They cab be used together to create larger pieces of terrain, different floors and walls, and are ideal for dioramas.
For more information and updates on our stock of models and materials, what we’re doing, what you’re painting or building (because we always love to share other peoples work), please subscribe to our mailing list, or follow us on Instagram or Facebook.
