i realized i never posted good photos of my finished terrain from gencon, so: ta-da! the abandoned laboratory from Vast-723-Arctic-Moon in all its glory.
the vast (hah!) majority of the terrain is 1" insulation foam board, which was scored with a yardstick and a ballpoint pen, cut with a hot wire cutter, then sealed with matte mod podge mixed with black paint for a base coat. after that it was just a lot...of gray paint...and some blue and white...and more gray. the stone pillars are cheap clear acrylic ornaments from the craft store with black construction paper taped to the back, which i then wrapped in aluminum foil and covered in expanding foam (because i was lazy). if i'd had more time i would have carved and built those out of more xps foam, but hey, they came out with cool textures.
one of the pillars was a "wall of runes" covered in alien text that the players wouldn't be able to read without putting on a special magic headband, at which point i handed over a blacklight flashlight and watched jaws drop. invisible ink is one of my favorite cheap and easy tricks to use when i'm running games; it makes it so fun when the players actually get to decipher hidden messages!
(and yes, i used dragon age elvish for the "alien text," thank you so kindly @karoiseka for sitting at my table and immediately clocking what i'd done and still not exposing my ass. the runes carved into the metal platform spell out STAND HERE, for the curious.)
