hills. HOW??!!

i used caulking to make a hill once, it worked well, you can sand it after too, so you get the right shape. also i just used a big sponge to make a hill for a dio.

Hills are easy, after you got the base place layers of syrofoam over each other, depending how step or hight you hill is will madder how many there are or how seperated they are.

Even simple supplies like newspaper can do it nicely, i use it on my beach dio. 

Why don't you have a crashed airplane with the pilot sitting on the wing or something, that would save you the debris in the air part. Still, even in a controlled landing, there was still dust and dirt from the airplane and props hitting the dirt. Here is a link that shows all the dust/asphalt/sparks from a F-111 bellt landing on a runway. If it were a controlled landing, the pilots plane was proboby damaged to much to be very maneuverable as he would have probobly landed on the beach or field instead of the dunes. If his plane landed in the dunes, chances are he was injured or the airplane was pretty badly shot up which would have made for a not so gentle landing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ak3gBImhLI

David

Well, I have never modelled a sand dune, so I'm not really qualified to give any direct advice on how to do it, but here's my recommendation:

Firstly, use books or the www to study a few photos of sand dunes, especially the ones in the area that you are planning to represent. For example, desert sand dunes have a different shape to beach sand dunes. Beach dunes are usually covered with some form of grass or creeper vine and may be littered with debris; desert dunes are usually barren. Also observe the colour of the dune; desert dunes may be yellow, brown or red whilst beach dunes are usually pale yellow to off-white (or even grey if you are modelling a volcanic pacific island scene).

After you decide on the dune shape, you can use any media available to form the shape. You could use styrofoam, balls of newspaper, wire mesh, rags, or anything that will give you a basic "bump" of the right shape. I have found the balled newspaper and/or wire (or nylon) mesh method to be pretty effective in producing hills, which is then covered with strips of newspaper that have been dipped in a watery plaster (with a little PVA) mix. This will dry to a fairly firm shell that can be built up more if required, covered with plaster for an even surface or just painted.

I reckon that nothing looks more like sand, dirt & rocks than sand, dirt & rocks. I always simulate soil or sand by using finely seived soil and sand. I use a minus 80 mesh sieve (grains passing through the seive are less than 1/80") or even a minus 200 mesh seive to collect the grains. Find a source of soil or sand that is the colour you want, then seive as much as you need.

As for simulating a crashing aircraft... that's a whole different ball game. Obviously, if it's a catastophic crash, there'd be sand and debris thrown into the air, which will be difficult to simulate. If it's a controlled, wheels-up landing, then it might be easier???

Hope my comments help.

I don't know if this is just more complicated, but if you need a larger hill, you can cover wadded up newspaper with pool screen, the stuff they use for the screens around pools. Shape the newspaper to form the hill in the shape you want it and then staple the screen to your base. Then just cover the screen with plaster or whatever.

Here's a step by step I did a couple months back that shows the way to build up landscape with foam and celluclay.

Shaped styrofoam covered in a layer of Celluclay, thick ball of Celluclay, wads of masking tape rolled into a ball and covered with plaster strips then coated in- you guessed it--- Celluclay.

 

Building up layers of foam is probably your best bet. Celluclay (or other paper mache material) is a dioramist's best bud.

Hope that helps...

Steve