I made a foam base using a few bits I had left over from a prewar tinplate-style mountain project from a few years back. I used an extra chunk to form a low hill or ridge on one corner, glued in using some Loctite Power Grab. Using a hobby knife, I did a bit of carving to get it into an approximate shape. I also roughly chiseled out the base for a gravel road that goes from the front edge up and onto/over the hill/ridge.
I then filled/formed/smoothed the slope using some DAP Fast 'n Final lightweight spackling. I've used this stuff to good effect in the past when making wargame terrain. Here, I had to use it in greater volume, and it took a lot longer to set and dry than in the past (days, not hours).
The whole thing was looking rather boring, so I used some Plaster-of-Paris and a Woodland Scenics random rock mold I had laying around to make a low cliff on one side. Here I made a couple of mistakes, the first being I neglected to use any sort of release agent on the mold. This made things a bit difficult in getting the casting out once it had dried. Fortunately the mold is rubber, so with a bit of care I was able to just peel the mold back and dump the casting out. Once it was completely dry, I used a razor saw to cut a flat edge across the bottom, sized to fit.
The second problem, which you can clearly see in the picture below, is I didn't get all of the air bubbles out of the plaster before I let it set. Now I have some pretty obvious air bubbles on the cliff face. I'm going to have to go back and try to fill those, then repaint the rock. Also, the color seems rather dark, so I might repaint it a light shade of gray to start. I'm not sure what method one can use to mitigate the bubbles and air pockets. I tried stirring the plaster a bit just after pouring, thinking this would agitate it enough to release any bubbles. Clearly it didn't.
Anyway, once I had the rockface cemented in, I backfilled with some more lightweight spackling. I gave the whole thing a coat of latex interior flat wall paint I had leftover from painting the living room. I then painted the rockface with some acrylic craft paint my wife had in her stash, followed by a wash made from diluted black acrylic model paint (Vallejo). I then dry-brushed it with some off-white and green-brown acrylic model paint (Vallejo). It looks okay to me, except a bit dark, but I've got to deal with the damn air-bubbles. While I work on that, I'm thinking ahead to turf. Any suggestions/recommendations?
Meanwhile, I'm still working on clearing away all of the stuff piled on the layout as well as in the office. Hoping to make more progress on that this weekend. I got sidetracked a bit this week finalizing my signup for Medicare and re-enrolling my wife in ACA for the first bit of next year. I think that's done for now, so refocusing on other matters at hand.
