Two things I will say up front. First, the end result really looks great. Second, this is a time-consuming, fiddly, pain in the butt project. But worth it. If you are into this sort of thing.
Without the Proxon table hot wire cutter, I wouldn't even consider attempting this. With the Proxon, it is fiddly but possible.
You begin by milling a great many individual stone blocks. A great many... I did both large and small sizes. You then build walls, stone by stone. Mine, as in the BMC video, are based on heavy duty cardboard. Some model railroad talus is glued on in bunches afterward.
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| Building ruins from single foam bricks |
When the pieces have been built, they are then base coated with a mixture of Mod Podge and cheap black craft paint. This serves as both a base coat and a level of protection for the foam.
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| Undercoat black-tinted Mod Podge |
To have a useful amount of these pieces, you need lots of them. Lots of stones. Lots of gluing. Lots of painting.
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| Lots of pieces in various stages of progress |
Painting of the pieces, for me, is the same as my painting scheme for generic Underdark terrain or any other stonework. A dark gray heavy brush. A medium-light gray dry brush, fairly heavy. Then a light grayish-white dry brush to pick out the highlights. On some pieces, perhaps not those shown in the picture below, a final wash of brownish-black tones down the brightness and makes the ruins a little dingy.
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| A couple of finished pieces |
A good project, with a very very nice end result, but not for the person for whom this degree of fiddly-ness would make them run screaming from the room. Admittedly, I have a high tolerance, at times, for this degree of relaxational fiddly-ness. But at times I felt like running screaming from the room.
I have done a decent number of both large and small block walls, pillars, etc, and will post another pic of a final set-up soon.
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