When building wargame terrain from scratch you have to closely look everywhere around for casual, "normal" things to be used. As everything this takes a lot of practice, that is, if you want to do something great, similar, and sometimes even better wargame terrain or scenery pieces that you can buy, and let me tell, if you haven't already figure that out, wargame terrain and scenery pieces are expensive. Prices are influenced by the materials used, the quality and quantity (little scales require huge financial resources) of them, the brand of the producer, the theater of war represented (from sci-fi to ancient and fantasy, from desert to jungle), how rare is that element on the market and of course, different others factors. Now, sometimes prices are just that high that they are ridiculous. Especially for someone who knows how they are or can be, built.
A good, fine and rewarding activity is the wargame terrain building. As I've said, you have to improvise, but along practice and inspiration (a little crazyness is always a plus), you have to watch many videos and read a lot of articles. So, start a documentation process. This is the easy way, trust me, no matter if you will watch some good tens of hours, it will cut another tens of hours and money wasted, by avoiding mistakes, and even more, so you will not reinvent the wheel.
Many times I found out that there are easier ways to do some terrain and scenery than I could figure out or from the recipes that I've watched. So keep consulting different sources even on the same subject. The easier way for someone may be the hard way for you, or even something that you admit is good (cheaper, faster and more realistic) but is not suitable to you (for example, for health and safety concerns like when working with cork bark, spray cans) or your style. We cannot talk about a style after unless you have done many terrain and scenery elements. You need to do many and for a while, no matter how many of them you do in a short time, this process, of making good wargame terrain and scenery takes time to master.
But you have to get started, taking advice from Terrain Tutor and other famous wargame terrain builders that say that in this activity "you cannot go wrong" and this is true. You are your own judge of what you making. In this respect you have to figure from the start or later what type of terrain you like and want to build and for what scale of game rules. Terrain can be a little wacky for sci-fi and fantasy (pink hills, violet forests, you get the idea), and may need a couple of hours of documentation for recreating "historical terrain" (i.e. Monte Cassino WW2 battle or the 1815's Waterloo battle).
Recreating a "realistic terrain" it is a trap. You can be close to it, but you will never achieve it. So do not waste time in something you cannot achieve (who can say exactly what was the real thing; real terrain is much more complex than the terrain we produce), but this means you have to figure out when to say stop it is enough, and be proud with what you have achieved and when to say it's enough,, it is good for me and for what I want to do. I do not have to tell you the difference in making a waragme terrain and scenery pieces for a diorama and exhibition and one it is for a tabletop wargame. Other factors have to be taking into account here, like the money and time you can invest in this process. Everything has a cost, and so does this process. It may take different materials, a lot of knowledge in order to know how to work with them and to figure out the best recipes for what you want to the end result to be.
If you like it, you are on the good track, but do not forget to take a glance at other and what and how they do it and ask your friends and if you have the occasion, somebody who doesn't know you about what you have created. Feedback is the way to improve your work. Don't be hard on yourself, keep on doing it and don't forget to use what you create: play a wargame with them, give them as presents, exhibit them, sell them if you want, but put them to a use. Form these uses you will get an important feedback. For example you may found out that the hill you've invested so much time and money, in fact does not work to well for, let's say a 15mm WW2 battle. Maybe it is not realistic, maybe does not allow the miniatures to shine, because you know this: in a wargame the miniatures and especially the way they maneuver and utilize the terrain and terrain features is one of the key elements and attractions, and this is something that separate a wargame with miniatures and 3D terrain from a wargame with chits and counters and a flat map.
It is a fun process to figure out how common things can be used to recreate wargame terrain and scenery (the limit is your mind) and not once it can remind you, and if you do not know it, you have to watch at least some episodes, of MacGyver and his extraordinary endeavors. It even entered the mass culture: the character's ability to use everyday objects to perform extraordinary feats (sometimes called "MacGyvering"). At a different scale and in fact in different scales (pun intended, as they say) a wargame terrain builder creates wonderful things for different game rules. It can even "tick" the eco necesity box - it uses and give them a cultural use, to materials and objects that otherwise would be throwed away, junk (for example sprues of miniatures - see one of my many examples, using a sprue from Zvezda's miniatures to create a infested base). So, the wargame terrain builder is a "little MacGyver", an artist and a natural (pun again?!) creator.
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