How to make your own dream island:
Islands are not hard to make. They are hard to get to look correct though. Unlike terrain at other scales here you are creating an entire geographical feature and for it to look its best it has to look natural. I am far from an expert but I know there are only certain ways in which an island will form and the best looking islands will keep this consideration in mind. For this island I decided for an outlying rock with a small and slightly eroded bay. I collected up a few blank cd's recently and these make excellent if a little restrictive bases. I would love something a little larger but finding something like these thats cheap and durable isn't easy. Also I don't have to cut the cd's to shape they are fine as they are!
I started off with the rocks. I can't really call these cliffs as they are according to scale only six meters high on average. I used some torn pieces from a cork placemat. These make the best rocks for terrain in general. They take paint well and they are really nicely textured. I framed the island with these building up some height in places so that the piece is a little more visually interesting. I left the bay area free from rocks.
I then filled in the gap with some air drying modelling clay. I made sure to wet the top of the piece down a good but and to smooth the individual chunks together while doing this. I find it cuts down a little on the surface cracking. It won't help with shrinkage but thats not to big of a problem on this smaller scale. When I am doing pieces like this I tend ot use lots of small chunks of clay. When these dry they separate and can leave cracks in the surfec which are annoying to fill. Wetting the top and smoothing it down with your finger, while messy, manages to stop this a lot. 
Once all this is dry I start flocking the piece. I use a fine sand with a few small stones thrown in. I think it is similar if not the same as what GW sell. I do this in sections to minimise any possibility of warping. Thats the fastest way to ruin a terrain piece in my opinion. Once the flock is dry I gave everything a black spray as undercoat and to seal the piece. I manage to spray paint the window at this point so I was in a lot of trouble once that got noticed! I guess thats one of the dangers of spraying out a window. For painting I used grey on the rocks, pretty simple with some Badab Black in the end to wash it down and make if look different from the sea. The land was Scorched Brown with a Bestial Brown drybrush over the top.
The sea was painted grey with a lighter grey closer to the cliffs. Some green was added further towards the rim. Over all this I gave the base a blue wash. This gave a nice light blue tint to everything. Finally I added the waves with an old brush I had. Its just straight white over everything.So thats how I made my island. I am not sure what I should do with it now but maybe some others will pick the game up too?
Very nice - I might copy that technique.
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