diy display base

thanks for all the suggestions, so i got some cheap fiberboard like thing, its like the board thats on the back of cheaper dressers, anyway it worked like a charm ill post pics when i get the finishing touches on it

I tried sheet rock, and I do NOT recommend it. It falls in my great idea at the time, but it kept powdering up as I was fitting it. Styrofoam is MUCH easier to work with.

I save the foam packing pieces that sometimes come as  sheets for ground work. It's light weight and easy to cut and shape. I either buy the pre fab wood bases from the craft store or make my own from scrap lumber pieces.

I've used wooden plaques from craft stores and also foam core.

An advantage of plaques is they come in a variety of shapes and have finished decorative edges.

So far, I have used two different materials with great success.

1. This is using a Poly-Foam. Not sure how to explain it, but its kind of a Styrofoam but thinner and more dense. It is cheap, easy to get at art supply stores and its very light.

2. This one is using Tamiya's Pla-Plate (basically its a flat sheet of styrene) which I taped onto a used wooden frame. Its light weight but its costly.

if it's just going to be landed on a deck you could just use the picture frame and paint the glass and detail it as the surface? here i added some powdered filler and some dirt to create the surface directly onto the glass of the photo frame.

Sheetrock is very heavy.  Something lighter would be easier to work with.

Pink insulation foam board is light weight, easy to cut, and can be trimmed with wood to dress up the edge. You have to use water base paint to seal the foam if you wish to paint the ground work (enamel paint will eat through it). As is you can use Woodland scenics products and Elmers glue to fasten the Scenic stuff to the foam to represent natural "ground". If you want to represent asphalt or concrete just paint it with a corresponding colored water base paint (black or gray). If you go over to the "Space" forum check out my "American V-2"  thread to see what a DIY base looks like. Good luck in your project.

that or fiberboard. may be able to get a scrap piece cheap at home depot. they could cut it for you. doesn't have to be perfect since you are putting stuff on top.