Tutorial: Wood Texturing on Plastic Card

A Guide to creating wood texture using plasticard.

I've found using plasticard is a good alternative to balsa wood for building. Large panels of it can be created, and overall strength is higher than gluing wood together. Below is a guide I created based on how I used it to construct a Mordheim Plague Cart for a Carnival of Chaos warband recently. Technique can be done on a small scale to create wood flooring for bases or smaller projects.

Step 1: I measured off a square of 3mm plastic (maybe 4 inch square) and cut it out. (This particular piece of plastic is from a display sign made of PVC) Then measured and marked off parallel lines with a 4mm spacing for the individual planks.

Step 2: I use a utility blade for cutting. Be sure to keep the blade sharp. A dull knife is not your friend. I pre-scored each parallel plank line with the blade, then used a pointed jewelers file to widen the gap between each plank.

Step 3: Here I have begun the scoring between the individual planks. When making the cross cuts to end each plank, be sure to focus on keeping them as random as possible. You don't want them all to line up. So varying the lengths helps alittle.

Step 4: Here you see I am laying in the wood texture of the individual planks. I push the file straight in to create some random knot holes. You can see a few to the left before the texture is done. Then I drag the tip of the file down each plank to create each texture line. Go from top to bottom, and keep it moving around. Trees are living and naturally have variation. Push hard enough to score the plastic, but not deeper than the lines between the planks.

Step 5: Here are a few final pieces constructed. If you look closely, you'll notice 2 small nail holes at the ends of each plank. I used a very small drill bit to drill shallow holes to simulate the nail holes. Hope this helps.