Will, i'm sorry, did I offend you in some way??
It seems our tech guy overlooked putting this in the public venue by mistake. Nothing on our boards is a members only area and never was there any intention of having any forums set up this way.It was simply an oversite since this area was only set up yesterday.My apologies, I did not realize this. I am working at getting this changed but our tech guy is in Australia so it may take a little bit.
In the meantime to show my intentions were only to provide members here with information I will post the How to here on the gauge where I have been a member in good standing i believe for quite some time!!!
I am sorry if i offended anyone, it was not my intention.
Note 1 picture will not be seen here in this post
Making a rock outcropping is actually pretty easy and doesnt require an enormous amount of skill................What it does require is a Mold or Molds for making your rocks from plaster and paying attention!!. Molds can be purchesed from several differant manufacturers, Woodland scenics being the best known. Making your own Rock Molds will have to be covered in another area as I am going to discuss how to do things Once you have your molds.
Once you have your basic Hardshell done, Place your molds taking notice of the direction of the rock strata's grain. You will want all your grain running in reletively the same direction.If you support the molds with small blocks of wood taped down the molds can sit in this wood pocket and will not flop spilling plaster all over.
OK, his done its time to mix up a batch of plaster to aproximately the consistency of Tomato soup and fill our molds as close to the top as possible. while this is setting up, spray the area where the molds will go with water to dampen and follow this by brushing on a thinned white glue mix right before adding the mold to the scene.( this will help act as a bonding agent giving you a superior bond over no glue).
Now watch your molds. When you can pick them up and bend them seeing fine cracks form it is time to plop them into your prepared spot. Remember which way the grain is going and how you decided to lay this particular mold in. Now, flip it over onto the spot and hold it in place for a couple of minutes.You will actually begin to feel Heat coming through the mold. When you feel this heat for about 2 minutes you can remove your hand and let the mold remain where it is for about 10 minutes.
While this is setting up clean up and prepare for your next mold. Overlapping molds is a good idea in some area's and carving can be done to tie the molds together nicely with any knife while the plaster is still moist. Dont get overly excited here trying to make things perfect since there are other steps that can be taken to cover up these area's later if your sculpting skills are like mine ......Follow the same procedure for each rock casting you will do as decribed above.
Next step is to create our Talus or rip rap. This is the rock that has broken away from the face of the cliffside or been blasted from the cut through the rock and is piled up below.
Take all the left over dried plaster from in your bucket that didnt get used and is now getting hard. Toss it all into a plastic bag and start whacking away with a hammer.
Pour it out and set aside the pieces that are too large or that dont look like theyve been broken up enough and repeat the process. Now spread this rip rap where it would likely have fallen or where the railroad guys would have moved it to based on your situation (think like a forman of the crew here )
lay it all in and go have Lunch while this sets up a little more from air exposure.After Lunch it will be time to begin coloring our Rocks.
Rocks are interesting in that once you really look at them you realize they have alot of colors to them.............Oh sure there are rocks that are really dark greay or really a light buff but over an entire cliff face you generally see muliple hues or even distinct color breaks.
Notice that there are several shades ranging from ligh taupe to an orangy red to a charcoal. Learning to get these subtle and not so subtle colorations is something that while not real difficult does take a bit of practice so I reccomend that you do just that and practice these techniques on some rock molds you have made just for this purpose(later they can be broken up and used elsewhere on the layout)
There are many ways to do this coloring, probobly as many as there are modelers but here is my method. I use an Alcohol India Ink mix(1 1/2 -2 tsp to a pint of denatured alcohol) along with Acrylic artists colors by Liquitex,Basic, etc in Burnt Umber Raw Umber raw sienna and ochre. I mix these into thin washes using a dab to about a cup of water. I also mix a slightly stronger solution in small cups.
The thin washes are put into spray bottles as is the India Ink solution, I also Keep a spray bottle of Plain Water.
First I spray the castings with my India Ink solution lightly, I then take a brush and dip into my little cups of well mixed color solution that is a bit stronger than my sray and i dab a hint of diffeant colors here and there. I then spray on a wash of a differant color then that dabbed. For exampl, if i dab a yellow ochre i will then hit it with an Umber wash.....this helps diffuse the color and give a multi hue blending affect. some area i want to keep a more stark ditinc color i will then wash with plain water spray. The same is done to the rip rap although these are mostly just sprayed since they are loose still at this point and while doing your rock faces they recieve quite a bit of spray.
Once you have covered all your rocks using the above method hit the entire area with an india ink wash ( be careful here as it is easy to get too dark)Now get out your 50/50 diluted white glue and start soaking the area around the rip raptossing a bit of dirt groundcover or turf blend in along the edges to soak up excess and begin your first layer of ground cover scenicing.......Letting this dry for a little while you can now highlight by drybrushing a light color like white with a hint of grey added to simulate sunlight hitting the faces of the outcroppings. You can also do this another time after everything had dried completely.
If you practiced and had a good idea of what you wanted hopefully you will end up with something that looks like this ( I have a bit more highlighting to do on these yet)
