Decaying stuff - finished

 The diorama/vignette/scene, whatever you want to call it, is done. Here is an overview picture.

And a few closeups.

Decaying Stuff - part 14

 First paint pass on the grass - buff.

And then a number of passes with green and greenish-yellow tones, and some others. The grass-less patches also got some color. I wanted a somewhat dried out look, not anything lush, so I think I'll stop here and see what it looks like when I have added the wall and the decaying stuff, and uncovered the street.

Decaying Stuff - part 13

 I added some more grass tufts, and some more 6 mm static grass as well.

And then, surprisingly, but as I have seen been done by others, and have done a few times myself, painted all of the grass and terrain black!

Why would you like to do a thing like that? Firstly, if you use a variety of different vegetation materials and of different brands the effect might end up a little off, often with colors a little too bright and shiny. Natural colors are often very subdued. One way to get round that is by airbrushing everything with colors of your own choice, and for this to work you would like a consistent base color. Using black as that color furthermore helps creating fake shadows and depth. 

None of this is my idea to start with, but something I have picked up from various online sources. But I have used it before, and like it.

Decaying Stuff - part 12

Proceeding with the "landscaping". I wrapped the wall in plastic and put it down where it will eventually sit. I then covered the surrounding terrain with some pumice gel (an acrylic medium) to give it some texture. By wrapping the wall in plastic I could make it sit properly buried in the ground without risking smearing it with the gel.

When the gel had set I removed the wall and painted the ground a brown color. As will eventually be evident (but not today) this step serves no real purpose at all. I just wanted to do that to make things look more "real" during the next step. Anyway, with the ground painted I went on to apply some static grass. But before I did that I test placed all the props (bikes, appliances and so on) so that I could mark their locations. I did not want any grass exactly in this spots since the things later placed there would then float on top of the grass in an unrealistic way. Here is what it looked like with 2.5 mm grass applied.

On top of that, but not everywhere, I then added some 6 mm grass, after which it looked a bit more tousled and untidy.

And that's it for tonight. 😊

Decaying Stuff - part 11

The street is being paved, by glueing the stones one-by-one to the foam base. Madness? Anyhow, here they are all in place.

After which they were painted and otherwise treated to make it all look like an old paved street. 

I also took the time to

- Build and weather a barrel, supposedly used by some hobos for a warming fire.

- Dip some scale sized pieces of corrugated (aluminum) sheeting in an etchant (ferric chloride solution) to give them a rusty look.

- Make some loose bricks representing a few of those which have fallen off the wall.

Decaying Stuff - part 10

 I have begun laying out the scene itself.

The base is a piece of foam on which the brick wall will sit at an angle, just to make it a little more lively. At the front a piece of a stone paved street will show. To get the rest of the terrain, and the wall, a bit higher than the street it will sit on a piece of foam board. That's the black piece in the picture above.

Here is a picture of me cutting 4 mm cork into Belgian Blocks for the street. Yes, I could have scribed and carved the stones right out of the foam, but I just did a brick wall that way...

Decaying Stuff - part 9

More work on the brick wall. First some forming and sculpting in order to get a more varied and interesting look.

Then some basic dark red brick color...

...followed by an attempt to get some color variation. Yes, this looks ridiculous, but do not fret. 😄 It will get better during the steps that follow...

...which was to cover the lot in a mixture of dry plaster and find sand. The basic purpose being to add mortar between the bricks. But when this was later wetted with alcohol follwed by diluted PVA glue, it also helped to tone down the colors and add some mortar and plaster residue on the surface of the bricks. Since I was too eager, and did not way until the paint from the previous step had fully dried, it actually toned the colors more than I had planned. But in the end I think that was OK.

Finally, I added patches of spackling compound, painted and meant to look like remainders of the original plaster covering the wall. I also added some cap stones and did som general weathering.

Decaying Stuff - part 8

I have started on the old brick wall which shall serve as a scenic background for the "decaying stuff". I am building the wall out of foam, of which I first cut a piece of suitable size. Then I scribed the brick contours into the foam with a hobby knife.

The part where the bricks are missing will be an area of the wall where the original plaster still remains, thus obscuring the bricks.

Next step was to widen the knife scribes to get the look of individual bricks. I used some dentist's tools for that (I don't know if they actually are authentic tools used by real dentists but that's how they were advertised 😀 ).

I will do some more forming of the bricks, removing some and generally trying to get a more worn look.