Saturday 9 May 2015

LXXXVI. The Cemetery Project vol.6

The Cemetery Project continues. The newest addition are some home-made graveyard fences.


Materials used:
  • plaster
  • PVA glue
  • superglue
  • balsa
  • plastic rulers
  • DAS air-drying clay
  • plaster tiles (see LXXXV. The Cemetery Project vol.5)
  • sand
  • wooden beads
  • plastic fence
  • pins
  • Vallejo Heavy Transparent Gel 
  • static grass tufts
  • birch tree leaf litter  

The plan:

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Let's start wih the clay wall sections. They were made using an expendable mould made of balsa. The key points here: have proper right angles, the mould must be the same height everywhere, and it must be well secured to a flat surface.
The mould filled with clay. It's important to pack it tightly in there, especially in the bottom corners, in order to avoid unwanted holes. I use a metal spoon and a plastic ruler as tools. DAS clay is easier to work with if you spray it with a bit of water.
When the clay dried I removed it from the mould (or rather, I removed the mould from it).

Carving some detail into the walls with a sculpting tool.

The whole thing starts to take shape. A plastic ruler makes a great base for this because its shape and size are prefect and it won't warp when textured and painted. I pinned and glued the three balsa pillars into place on the base, and the low walls in between them. Each pillar got a plaster tile for a cap.
Adding further detail.


The building part is almost done. You can see the iron part of the fence waiting in the background. Before it gets installed, the pillars need to be covered in a coat of plaster mixed with a bit of PVA. This will give the entire pillar the same texture.
Plastic fence from ebay. There are different designs available.
When the plaster has cured it might need a little sanding and filing here and there. The iron parts can be superglued in place at this point. Now there's only basing left to do.

Vallejo Heavy Transparent Gel mixed with sand produces a thick, textured paste. I spread this all over the base. The spots I missed were touched up with sand and PVA later.


 *

I've made two fence pieces this time around but I'll eventually add more. I'm really happy with how they came out. Much prefer these to the Citadel ones. I'm planning to also do some entirely solid walls; the same style but without the wrought iron part on top. 

The finished pieces:

Fence section I.

Fence section II. The Piper is here for size comparison.



14 comments:

  1. Absolutely! Do you have some shots of your collected terrain pieces for this project? Must be looking pretty sweet already...

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    1. Haven't done any group pictures yet. But if I manage to take some decent photos this week I'll include them in my next post.

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  2. Those are pretty great and look like they'll fit right in with the rest of your collection.

    Thanks for the great step by step, really helpful considering my friends and I have just started working on a Mordheim board.

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    1. Thank you! Best of luck with your Mordheim board. :)

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  3. Great tutorial, Ana. Those model-railroading fence sections are just the thing for this project. Well done.

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  4. What a fantastic job, creative and beautiful...you're very talentuous sir! A splendid project...

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    Replies
    1. Thank you, Phil!

      And that's "miss" rather than "sir." ;)

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  5. Wonderful job!
    I'm looking into doing a graveyard diorama for Reapercon next year for their 'horror' theme.
    Thanks so much for doing the WIP pictures, it's really helpful to see how you're getting from point a to point OMG HOW DID SHE DO THAT?!
    :)

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    Replies
    1. Thank you! :)

      If you're planning to do a graveyard diorama, I can recommend you this book: Adóba, L.: "Building Dioramas- Stone objects". I've recently discovered it and it's fantastic. I'll write a bit more about it in my next post (hopefully soon).

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    2. Fantastic! Thanks!

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  6. Great Tutorial for making wall's, love the results.

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