need an easy lunar surface for display

It can be a bit messy, so do this outside. Get a pre-edged decoupage board from Hobby City or Michael's that is big enough for your base, and mask off the edges. Then with a thinned wood glue or clear flat spray paint, coat the surface and sprinkle fine wood ash all over it. Let dry completely and reapply if needed. Remember, the lunar surface has been found, for the most part, to be several inches of light gray dust. You want to convey that 'soft' surface. In that video for a lizard cage base, it looks hard and shiny. The moon ain't like that. You may also want to seal it with a flat sealer for longevity.

Also, NASA tries not to land in spots with a bunch of craters, so you need not have any on your diorama.

I've used this treatment for dio's of sunk ships and motorcycles in the desert, just with different colored fine soils. In the motorcycle case, I also rolled the tires around on it while it was still wet to leave tracks like there would be out in the dirt.

HooYah Deep Sea

It can be a bit messy, so do this outside. Get a pre-edged decoupage board from Hobby City or Michael's that is big enough for your base, and mask off the edges. Then with a thinned wood glue or clear flat spray paint, coat the surface and sprinkle fine wood ash all over it. Let dry completely and reapply if needed.

Remember, NASA does not land in spots with a bunch of craters, so you need not have any on your diorama.

I've used this for dio's of sunk ships and motorcycles in the desert. In the motorcycle case, I rolled the tires around on it while it was still wet to leave tracks like there would be out in the dirt.

 

That's a good idea.  I have lots of charcoal ash from the grill.

Thanks

Dave

You want to make sure it's clean and dry; and doesn't smell like barbecue !!!

I also added some points to my first response, so you might want to re-read it.

HooYah Deep Sea

You want to make sure it's clean and dry; and doesn't smell like barbecue !!!

And...more inportantly...that it's GREASE free. (Learned the hard way back in the mid-'80s....)

If no wood ash (and it may vary in color), you might try concrete if someone has a bag lying around.  It looks very similar to moon dust.

Gary

Grey tile grout may be fine enough for what you need.  I have used tan grout for a desert dio and it worked fine.

If memory serves, doesn't it come with a base already?

This is BBQ grill bricket dust. It's used with the 1/48 scale Space 1999 eagle.

As said, I painted elmers yellow glue on fiberboard and shook the dust on it.

I think it looks good, but as you can see it's flat.

That looks great!

No base in this release; it's the 50th anniversary from Revell.  I've seen other models with bases, Monogram, I think.

I had the version that had the base, but I didn't like it, so intend to build a much flatter, smoother on (agree with the statement above that NASA doesn't pick rough landing spots). While model is complete, I have not started the base yet (dropped the model and working on repairs now).

My plan is to use particle board as a cheap substrate, with celluclay on top.  Celluclay allows you to put some detail in- a slight ridge, and a few very small craters.  I planned to sprinkle (and embed a few) pieces of model train ballast, and airbrush a medium gray finish.

Hi Dave;

 Promise not to laugh? I did a Dio years ago for a friend of mine. He did a M48-A-1 as a moon exploration vehicle. What I did was take a picture frame.( One of those plain types) 24"24" and fill it with Modeling plaster.

 I then spritzed it lightly ( to dampen the surface) Then Dropped different marbles and blunt end dowels into it. The appropriate splats were preserved and solidified. We had some very interesting Craters on that Puppy!

     I know it was messy, But it sure was a blast! ( Pun Intended) Doing it! Oh,Yeah, we did it outside!