I’m applying the plastercloth carefully, but I’m still getting random depressions. The newspaper was either ineffective or insufficient to smooth the application:
I need more practice, but at this point the depressions are making it difficult for me to secure my plaster rock moldings so they look natural. How do you smooth plastercloth to minimize or eliminate irregularities, or are they inevitable? I’m applying Gypsolite on top of the plastercloth and “burying” the rocks in it to secure them, but I still have lifted edges.
Your cardboard webbing looks great. what I like to do when adding rock moldings, is to glue the rock molding directly on the webbing, I use hot glue for that. Then I lay the plaster cloth around the castings, and slightly overlapping the castings, so they look like they are in the ground, and not on top of ground.
You will always have some irregularities in the the plaster cloth surface. You can smooth a lot of them out with sculptamold or gypsolite, etc but you won’t get a perfectly smooth surface. On the other hand, a non-smooth surface mimics nature and irregularities add interest. You don’t need a perfectly smooth smooth surface to plant your rocks on. Just bed them in plaster, gypsolite, sculptamold, etc. Use more of the same to fill in any open spots. Another thing that you can try is to pour your rocks and place them before they set up. This way you can get them to conform to the surface under them. It’s all about experimentation. Your plaster cloth work looks to be about as good as it can be. Good luck and have fun.
Joe’s answer was spot on. Just follow his directions and it will look great. Nature rarely if ever produces terrain that is perfect, it’s those irregularities that makes it interesting. If you follow Joe’s recommendation about bedding the rocks or placing them before they set up your ground cover will hide any joints or seams and it will look as a la naturale as can be.
I would suggest putting your strips closer together. I sometimes have a solid carboard surface to put the plaster strips on. Cardboard is cheap and you can create almost any terrain you want by adding strips over others. This is a section of my layout where I have steep drops and I wind up with carve rock surfaces using sculptmold over the plaster. The sculptamold is easy to shape and carve as it sets.
The initial plaster surface shouldn’t be expected to come out smooth. I mix stiff batches of plaster (maybe 2:1 plaster:water) and use it to fill and finish the scenery shell.
Here’s a scene in the process of getting smoothed out. The finish coat is progressing toward the foreground.
This is the same location after the plaster was finished and painted, so it’s ready for ground cover. The completed shell isn’t perfectly smooth (and really shouldn’t be), but the unrealitic irregularities are gone.
Thanks to all–great tips and reassurance. I especially appreciate the images. Although I’m not there yet, I’m getting the hang of it, and your help will flatten my learning curve. As Dave Frary said, “The three rules of learning to create realistic scenery are practice, practice, practice!”
I am using the same process right now and I am not everly concerned about what the plaster looks like. Consider it just the first layer of scenery material. Applying Sculptamold, Gypsolite or Lou Sassi’s ‘ground goop’ will fill in some of the depressions and actually provide more definfition to the finished product. Then by the time you apply the ground foam, trees, bushes or whatever else will actually make these rough areas an asset.
You’re so right, Harold. I remember when I first started doing scenery I obsessed over the under lying structure but after practice, trial and error I soon realized it was what goes ON that base that counts. Not to say the understructure isn’t important, it is… I simply learned that it is, for the most part going to be covered over with other scenery products, homemade and store bought.
I think it depends a lot on the area you’re modeling, which in my case is the Appalachians, so I have lots of bushes, grasses and trees.
I have extruded foam, for the most part, for a base and at times use plaster cloth over that… but not much. If I remember right this ‘mountain’ doesn’t have any at all.
You learn so much as you go along, there is a big difference in the areas I first started in and the ones I do now. One day I’m going to go back, take those areas out and redo them.
