S
Stevekir
Guest
Part 2 (of 2)
7. Foil on Wet Plaster
This method, taken from the Internet, makes a more smoothly crinkled rock face with edges less sharp and more irregular than with the Hard Fractured Rock method (Item 3 above). It is shown on YouTube:
a) First make a support. If you are making a cliff, this can be simply a flat surface, covered with cling film if it could be damaged by water. If a hill side which rises to a flatter top (as in the first image below), make that support using either wet paper draped over a skeleton and then made rigid by several coats of PVA glue, or use Woodland Scenics’ Shaper Sheet.
b) Pour and/or spoon wet plaster on to the support. Immediately press on to it a sheet of crumpled kitchen aluminium foil. Make the size of the crumples to suit the scale of your model, remembering that in 1/76 scale (OO gauge) ¼ inch represents 19 inches on a rock face. Brush a release agent (2 drops of washing-up liquid in a cup of water) on the foil and press that side onto the plaster, pressing more for more rounded features or less for less rounded. The first picture shows the first piece of foil being applied.
View attachment 150179
c) The second picture shows the finished surface: it has smaller and sharper irregularities than in the first picture.
d) After the plaster has set the foil should be picked off bit-by-bit. Tweezers are useful here. The surface can then be painted as shown in items 1 and 6.
8. Wet Paper
Slightly crumpled wet paper makes convincing rock faces. This technique is borrowed from traditional methods of making railway scenery but does it “inside out”.
a) Make some crumpled balls of wet newspaper about 1 and 2 inches in diameter. Place them on a flat surface almost touching and press them down slightly. Put a sheet of slightly crumpled wet newspaper soaked in PVA glue on top and use the fingers to create suitable undulations. Encourage a few creases. Leave to dry. Paint the surface with several coats of PVA glue until it is more rigid. (At this stage the traditional method is to use this as the finished surface which is effective if you will be sprinkling on “grass” but it does not give a rock-like surface. You could glue on finely ground plaster but this might hide the surface detail created by the paper.)
b) Wet the surface with a release agent such as 2 drops of washing up liquid in a cup of water. Pour quite runny plaster on the surface to a depth of about 1/3 of an inch and when set turn upside down and prize or peel off the paper. This can be difficult. The resulting plaster surface will hopefully look like a slightly wavy rock surface, ready for painting as shown in items 1, 4, 5 and 6.
9. Polyurethane Foam (already set, “cushion Foam”).
a) This method was taken from the Internet. Polyurethane foam has the advantage of being very light. Several layers of slabs are placed one on the other to the required height and glued together. PVA can be used. Two fingers are then used to pluck off bits of foam to make an irregular surface which is quite realistic. You can choose to preserve the horizontal lines as strata (but without the horizontal flat surfaces shown here which are not very geologically correct), or by plucking across the lines to make a single massive face.
View attachment 150180
b) The surface can then be painted either in subtle variations or, in the case of the single massive face, a more uniform colour.
View attachment 150181
10. Carving Fine Grained Expanded Polystyrene Foam Sheets
View attachment 150182
This example was taken from the Internet. It shows a shattered slatey rock made in Expanded Polystyrene (EPS), hand-carved. I haven’t tried this method.
Use a wide-bladed craft knife to cut, then use a stiff wire brush to roughen the surface and edges. Quite a lot of artistic skill is needed to trick the eye that the surface is a hard rock. Dry brushing gives it depth, as seen above:
11. Bark
Small pieces can be obtained at about £5 each, which are good for making realistic individual rocks (although it is probably easier to make a mould in Latex from a suitable surface. Woodland Scenics sell Latex.
http://hobby.uk.com/cork-bark.html
One video shows adding grass
http://woodlandscenics.woodlandscenics.com
View attachment 150183
This YouTube movie shows how to make rocks from bark. Dry brushing again gives depth:
View attachment 150184
View attachment 150185
12. Hand Carving
View attachment 150186
You could hand-carve a rock face from plaster. This method uses one or more tools with ends which have a pick or a flat scraper etc. Polyfilla is rather hard for this and a better alternative would be Woodland Scenics Carving Plaster as described in Items 1 and 6. The tools are used to break off bits of plaster leaving hard edges, lumps and cavities. It requires some artistic skill to make the result looking natural.
View attachment 150187
7. Foil on Wet Plaster
This method, taken from the Internet, makes a more smoothly crinkled rock face with edges less sharp and more irregular than with the Hard Fractured Rock method (Item 3 above). It is shown on YouTube:
a) First make a support. If you are making a cliff, this can be simply a flat surface, covered with cling film if it could be damaged by water. If a hill side which rises to a flatter top (as in the first image below), make that support using either wet paper draped over a skeleton and then made rigid by several coats of PVA glue, or use Woodland Scenics’ Shaper Sheet.
b) Pour and/or spoon wet plaster on to the support. Immediately press on to it a sheet of crumpled kitchen aluminium foil. Make the size of the crumples to suit the scale of your model, remembering that in 1/76 scale (OO gauge) ¼ inch represents 19 inches on a rock face. Brush a release agent (2 drops of washing-up liquid in a cup of water) on the foil and press that side onto the plaster, pressing more for more rounded features or less for less rounded. The first picture shows the first piece of foil being applied.
View attachment 150179
c) The second picture shows the finished surface: it has smaller and sharper irregularities than in the first picture.
d) After the plaster has set the foil should be picked off bit-by-bit. Tweezers are useful here. The surface can then be painted as shown in items 1 and 6.
8. Wet Paper
Slightly crumpled wet paper makes convincing rock faces. This technique is borrowed from traditional methods of making railway scenery but does it “inside out”.
a) Make some crumpled balls of wet newspaper about 1 and 2 inches in diameter. Place them on a flat surface almost touching and press them down slightly. Put a sheet of slightly crumpled wet newspaper soaked in PVA glue on top and use the fingers to create suitable undulations. Encourage a few creases. Leave to dry. Paint the surface with several coats of PVA glue until it is more rigid. (At this stage the traditional method is to use this as the finished surface which is effective if you will be sprinkling on “grass” but it does not give a rock-like surface. You could glue on finely ground plaster but this might hide the surface detail created by the paper.)
b) Wet the surface with a release agent such as 2 drops of washing up liquid in a cup of water. Pour quite runny plaster on the surface to a depth of about 1/3 of an inch and when set turn upside down and prize or peel off the paper. This can be difficult. The resulting plaster surface will hopefully look like a slightly wavy rock surface, ready for painting as shown in items 1, 4, 5 and 6.
9. Polyurethane Foam (already set, “cushion Foam”).
a) This method was taken from the Internet. Polyurethane foam has the advantage of being very light. Several layers of slabs are placed one on the other to the required height and glued together. PVA can be used. Two fingers are then used to pluck off bits of foam to make an irregular surface which is quite realistic. You can choose to preserve the horizontal lines as strata (but without the horizontal flat surfaces shown here which are not very geologically correct), or by plucking across the lines to make a single massive face.
View attachment 150180
b) The surface can then be painted either in subtle variations or, in the case of the single massive face, a more uniform colour.
View attachment 150181
10. Carving Fine Grained Expanded Polystyrene Foam Sheets
View attachment 150182
This example was taken from the Internet. It shows a shattered slatey rock made in Expanded Polystyrene (EPS), hand-carved. I haven’t tried this method.
Use a wide-bladed craft knife to cut, then use a stiff wire brush to roughen the surface and edges. Quite a lot of artistic skill is needed to trick the eye that the surface is a hard rock. Dry brushing gives it depth, as seen above:
11. Bark
Small pieces can be obtained at about £5 each, which are good for making realistic individual rocks (although it is probably easier to make a mould in Latex from a suitable surface. Woodland Scenics sell Latex.
http://hobby.uk.com/cork-bark.html
One video shows adding grass
http://woodlandscenics.woodlandscenics.com
View attachment 150183
This YouTube movie shows how to make rocks from bark. Dry brushing again gives depth:
View attachment 150184
View attachment 150185
12. Hand Carving
View attachment 150186
You could hand-carve a rock face from plaster. This method uses one or more tools with ends which have a pick or a flat scraper etc. Polyfilla is rather hard for this and a better alternative would be Woodland Scenics Carving Plaster as described in Items 1 and 6. The tools are used to break off bits of plaster leaving hard edges, lumps and cavities. It requires some artistic skill to make the result looking natural.
View attachment 150187