Painting terrain is not high on most gamer’s list of things to do. Partly because they are normally large pieces and partly because most terrain is smooth expanses with little texture. This kind of terrain can be bland. We though about that for this set and it helped shape the patterns and textures used in the set.

Normally when you see laser cut terrain you see thin cut lines that help to define panels. They work but do get lost from a distance. This is because they are vector lines. Basically shallow passes of the laser head. They cut fast and you can stack several passes to make them a little wider. They are great for speed and this is the primary reason you see them. We chose to go a different rout though. We are raster engraving the parts. Raster engraving works like an black and white inkjet printer drawing the image on the material one row at a time. This allows you to create nice wide lines and even lines of different depths just by changing the number of passes you go over the sheet. What that means is now we are not limited to simple lines or geometric patterns. We can engrave textures like diamond plate, brick or metal grating directly on the parts that once painted can be pulled out further with a quick drybrush of contrasting color.

The only downside is the extra time required to raster engrave parts compared to vector engraving. We feel this is not an issue so we can produce the best looking products on the market.