Rock Archway.

I recently built a rock wall and decided I wanted to try and build a rock archway. I did want to take pics as I went, but the early pics I took were terribly blurred and so useless . I have however, managed to take a few pics to sow the progress of the archway.

I started off with three pieces of hard board, and using a slot design, I soon had a 'H' shape which would become the basis of the arch.
Like most of you no doubt, I tend to collect styro foam, which is pretty useless for anything, but I hit upon the idea of breaking it up into odd shapes to create basis of the rock wall. When I built the rock wall, I used wet cardboard to create the rock face, here I have used both methods. here are a few pics.







I used pva wood glue to stick the foam and card board to the hard board. Once I was happy with the rock wall shapes, I mixed up some watered down PVA, 50/50 mix of glue and water and then paper mache'd over the shapes.




The next stage was to base coat the structure black, I hand painted mine, but spray would have been easier and faster! I have included Dax in one of the pics to give a sense of size.






Once the whole structure was painted black,using a 1" brush I dried brushed the archway in varying shades of grey paint, this will bring out the highlights of the rock work.




Once dry, using pva glue again, I added some flock to the archway.





So, there we have it, my rock archway . All in all I'm really pleased with it and it should prove useful in my dioramas. I must admit, the whole process did take quite a while to complete, but it just goes to show, that junk can be useful . Hope you enjoyed my build, thanks for looking!

 The stone archway turned out well! Adding the grey highlight coat of paint really began to make it look like something amazing. Then when you added the moss it suddenly... or not so suddenly, as I'm sure it took a long time to complete the detail work... took on a "life" of its own and now it looks real, like an actual piece of stone you would find out in the forest! Superb weathering and detail work! It looks fabtastic!

With proper lighting and an artistic drape of jungle foliage, this setting will look truly incredible!

Thank you for sharing the step by step process.

SCU_HQ wrote:

 The stone archway turned out well! Adding the grey highlight coat of paint really began to make it look like something amazing. Then when you added the moss it suddenly... or not so suddenly, as I'm sure it took a long time to complete the detail work... took on a "life" of its own and now it looks real, like an actual piece of stone you would find out in the forest! Superb weathering and detail work! It looks fabtastic!

With proper lighting and an artistic drape of jungle foliage, this setting will look truly incredible!

Thank you for sharing the step by step process.

  thanks Dave! it certainly took a lot longer than I first imagined! So pleased you like it. I really am quite eager to test it out in a dio setting, maybe I will get a chance tomorrow? The moss never actually took that long to position, it's the drying time thats the killer! . Again, thanks for the positive feedback, makes it all worthwhile, I just wish my earlier pics had not been blurred . That way it would have been a more detailed build process.

Thanks Dal for sharing with us your pics to sowing the progress of the archway. I’m loving the wallpaper by the way .

Hi Dal

agree with all the comments. Excellent scenery build. Gotta love the old Paper mache method . Tried and tested.

I'm thinking of using a similar idea for the AM garden but using the old plaster of paris bandage/textured paint method.

Looking forward to seeing your prop in action

Gunner Munro wrote:

I'm thinking of using a similar idea for the AM garden but using the old plaster of paris bandage/textured paint method.

Just be aware that plaster of Paris is NOT weatherproof and will degrade fairly quickly when exposed to rain etc.
Even if you spray it with some sort of lacquer, it will still soak up ground water through the base and crumble.
Fine white cement may be a better option.

LeStryge wrote:

Gunner Munro wrote:

I'm thinking of using a similar idea for the AM garden but using the old plaster of paris bandage/textured paint method.

Just be aware that plaster of Paris is NOT weatherproof and will degrade fairly quickly when exposed to rain etc.
Even if you spray it with some sort of lacquer, it will still soak up ground water through the base and crumble.
Fine white cement may be a better option.

Top tip ..That makes perfect sense.

Just had a quick look on Youtube and loads of ideas there

Gunner Munro wrote:

Hi Dal

agree with all the comments. Excellent scenery build. Gotta love the old Paper mache method . Tried and tested.

I'm thinking of using a similar idea for the AM garden but using the old plaster of paris bandage/textured paint method.

Looking forward to seeing your prop in action

Cheers Steve! pleased you liked it! Your project sounds great fun! I shall look forward too seeing that progress

This looks so awesome Dal! The moss always enhances everything!!!

I like that lighter colour you have.

RealSarahdactyl wrote:

This looks so awesome Dal! The moss always enhances everything!!!

I like that lighter colour you have.

Thanks Sarah! I agree. I too like the lighter shades of grey too. Gives a nice variety of scenery pieces .

Great looking job Dal !!

The flocked moss really looks well on it.
I have a big bag of flock grass for dioramas lying about.
Never knew what to do with it bar some of the 1:32 figurines I collect and paint.

You may have given me some inspiration there young man.

Dreadnought wrote:

Great looking job Dal !!

The flocked moss  really looks well on it.
I have a big bag of flock grass for dioramas lying about.
Never knew what to do with it bar some of the 1:32 figurines I collect and paint.

You may have given me some inspiration there young man.

Cheers Kev! it certainly kept me busy for a while! Be really cool to see what you come up with