Foam material for ground? (1 Viewer)

[Private Ryan]

Hi, I was wondering if using and then carving/painting a foam material for the ground and terrain would be a more economical way to create a textured base for figurines, as opposed to buying pre-made mats; which from what I've seen have no ability to mold to a shape. (I.E. creating a hill or a crater formed from artillery strikes)

 

[thebritfarmer]

Welcome to the forum PR !!


For sure

Have a look here at what I did with a scrap of foam

http://www.treefrogtreasures.com/forum/album.php?albumid=273 It is a great little base for photo shoots and I have used it many many times over the last few years. I also have a mat and I drape it over this to create hills, best of both worlds

 

[Private Ryan]

That's really cool, but how do you get the mats to lay flat on hills, i suppose i could use a blowtorch, but that would leave me with a permanent mold of a hill, not to mention taking a blowtorch to modeling material wouldn't work out so well...

 

[thebritfarmer]

They are really flexible but as you can see from mine it is just more like steps so I didn't have that problem.

I think a bit of folding, tucking and disguising with vehicles etc...may be needed if you go that route.

 

[Mitch]

private ryan...

Why not use pins to attach the matt to styrofoam or foam board and this will give it some permanence for what you need??
Mitch

 

[Private Ryan]

Ok, thanks so much Mitch! I never thought of that... , I'll try to get some pics up this weekend

PR

 

[Mitch]

Look forward to them
Mitch

 

[Mister Dave]

I would definitely experiment with the foam to create terrain. Air drying modeling compound or even something like a mixture of wood glue, water and sawdust can be used to seal it and cover your seams.

MD

 

[Private Ryan]

Today I made a trip to Michael's and bought the most dense looking foam board I could find, as well as a box of "Natural Clay" it's brown and appears to be the stuff that you put on a potter's wheel, it's air dry. Do you think this kind of clay would work in maybe a 1/4" slab put over the carved foam base? Has anyone tried this before?

 

[Mister Dave]

Today I made a trip to Michael's and bought the most dense looking foam board I could find, as well as a box of "Natural Clay" it's brown and appears to be the stuff that you put on a potter's wheel, it's air dry. Do you think this kind of clay would work in maybe a 1/4" slab put over the carved foam base? Has anyone tried this before?

I suspect it will work just fine though I might use a bit thinner coat over your foam terrain. Then try applying a coat of the wood glue and sawdust mixture on top of that to add some nice texture.

 

[Mitch]

private ryan...

It will work but, I would also say try some celluclay/claycrete which is a paper mache based product which, you can drill sand carve etc when dry or, a filler/plaster which, I would say will be easier than air dry clay for your ground work. A good tip is also to cover a thin layer of pva glue or any white glue to your foam board first so, everything adheres to it as I have seen materials dry and crack without this support and come away from the board.

Air dry clay in my experience is great for making sandbags and walls etc (I have posted some of my bits using this clay in the dio thread)

If you get hold of a product called scatter grip or scenic bond you will be able to stick anything you want from groundwork to branches etc to your bases with great ease.
Mitch

 

[Private Ryan]

I tried both methods, using the clay to seal a carved foam base..... And the foam worked great, and was fairly easy to carve, however the clay didn't. I put it in my basement to let it dry the next day when i came down to check on it, there were huge cracks all over... I classify that as a waste of 7 bucks. Next i'm going to try the paper-mache stuff that Mitch was talking about.

 

[thebritfarmer]

For mie I just used lots of white glue and toilet paper to cover the foam. Then I painted it a base colour and the used ground cover from a model railway store. I believe even Treefrog sells it.

 

[Private Ryan]

in what way do you apply the toilet paper?

 

[thebritfarmer]

I painted sections of the foam with white glue then laid the square of toilet paper on them then applied white glue on top of the sheet. I did water down the white glue though as it was a little to thick. I also did about 3 or 4 layers.