Best material to make a base Celluclay, Plaster...other?

 I have used this technique for several years in both model RR HO scale and 1/35 scale dioramas, both about the same exept the scale.

 Plaster is too brittle, try acrlyics, home repair items are for the most part acrylic based, i.e. Polycrylic water sealant for water based dioramas and caulking for ground work.

 1.) Build up an area using styrofoam, florists foam, or construction foam, carve the initial patterns and elevations.

 2.) Mix the caulking from the tube with water and acrylic hobby paint to get a basic color, then brush the mix onto the foam, while drying add sand, soil, or any other ground material. This will speed up drying, the mix should not crack or shrink. And should look like pancake batter. Acrylic paints added to the base color of the caulk which I found tan works will enhance the overall color effects.

 3.) Continue process until the whole base is covered with about 1/4 inch of the ground material. You can then paint the whole thing for shadowing or other colors blended in.

 4.) Practice with small dioramas which are actually more effective than a giant one, even my HO RR is a series of small scenes connected, as I mentioned the two hobbies are actually using the same techniques. I don't have any military dios larger than about 12"x15" and I pack a lot of detail into that small area but they are not crowded. Hopefully a Dragon kit turned into a Mortar crew along side a Tamiya M-21 Mortar Carrier will come out in FSM. We'll see.

 5.) Acrylic "Poly" wood sealant works great for water scenes as well and out of the can in one step, no mixing, no bad odor, no heating on the stove and water clean-up! Again, experiment in small water dios, i.e. mud puddles, small streams or my favorite, simulating iced over streams with baking soda snow.

  Watch for photos here as my digital Nikon D-40 with macro lense will get to work.

  More later, and if you have a moment, I have many posts to MRR as well as FSM with vast amounts of experience from 30 out of 58 years of models and such.

 Thanks,

 johncpo

Thanks for all the good advice guys! I think I am going to give the celluclay a shot.

IanIsBored2000 wrote:

They're all relatively easy.  It sort of depends what you're trying to make.  Lots of contour, like a hill, or a gully will be more complicated as you need to make the basic shapes out of something before coating in three methods you listed.  The absolute easiest I wo0uld probably say is spackle, isnce you literally scoop it out of a container and plop it on, but mixing the other two only takes minutes.

Spackle really is only if you want a thin plaster-like layer, and would be usuitable for any sort of shaping or manipulation.

Celluclay is really the most versatile, and easy to work with. Use the Search feature here, and you should get a bunch of hits to look through.

They're all relatively easy.  It sort of depends what you're trying to make.  Lots of contour, like a hill, or a gully will be more complicated as you need to make the basic shapes out of something before coating in three methods you listed.  The absolute easiest I wo0uld probably say is spackle, isnce you literally scoop it out of a container and plop it on, but mixing the other two only takes minutes.