If you are tired of playing on tables that look like Earth, one of the easiest ways to get an alien appearance is to use silk flowers to make this vegetation. It also has the advantage of being very cheap and easy to do, and can be done in almost any color without the need for painting. It also takes very little time; in fact, it takes as long to flock the bases as it does to make the vegetation. If you play a horde army like the Tyranids, you just need to find some plants that match your paint scheme. Pretty soon, you’ll have large amounts of matching area terrain to fit your army. Just be careful not to lose your models in the terrain!
To make silk flower vegetation start by taking the flower apart and remove the petals. Usually the plastic pieces holding the flower together aren’t glued and merely need to be popped off of the stem.
Depending on the manufacturer and type of flower this will give you anywhere from one to six rings of petals from each flower.
Pull the center of this ring through a small hole and you are rewarded with a fern like plant. This small hole can either be a hole in the base itself, or a small washer that can then be glued down to the base. Either method works quite well and yields identical results.
Pull the petals through the hole until you get the desired height of plant you want and glue it from the underside. After it is dried trim off the extra bit of flower petal from the underside with a sharp knife. Generally speaking, the thinner each individual petal is, the better the plant will look. We’ve found that a medium sized petal will give you a plant that looks something like a giant cabbage.