I have gotten some plaster and am about to start casting rock faces. Are there any other methods that produce good looking faces besides the foil method? What I have read on the foil is allyagottadois crumple the foil pour the plaster and wait. U can also put it on the mountian after it has began to harden and hold it there until u can peel the foil off when it is as warm as your hand. Any other ideas are greatly appericated.[;)]
Find a rock that looks like what you want (large lumps of coal are good.) Buy some liquid latex from the craft store (used for making plaster molds). Coat the rock with soapy water and let dry. Coat several layers over part of the rock (allowing it to dry between layers.) If you want a really heavy duty mold but some cheescloth or gauze banadge between some of the layers. Peel off the latex mold.
Dave H.
I used the foil method and the woodland scenic rock molds. IMO there is no comparison. It is very hard to get a realistic strata look from foil method.
Check out Bragdon Enterprises for more molds. Making your own is a good option as well. Make sure the rock you start with scales well. I’m also not fond of foil rocks. IMHO good molds look way better.
The W/S molds or molds made from selected rocks are the way to go. Cast a sample of each of the molds to get a feel of the strata/ graining and shapes for orientation of placing the mold. For sheer cut faces of granite/ limestone without vegetation in the crevases, you may have to carve the plaster as sections are done. Try to avoid a patchwork look of the individual molds and repetition of the same mold. If the hillside is just exposed outcroppings showing through the scenery, the molds only need to be placed where you like. The trees and vegetation will fill-in and gain the desired effect.
I color the hydrocal w/ powdered masonry dyes. By experimenting w/ the colors, you can get a nice base color to add the drybrushed highlights for the finished look and depth. If the castings chip or you place pieces of broken/ cut molds, no white shows.
Bob K.
I had good luck with WS. I used both light hydrocal and Plaster of Paris. One was cheaper and one worked a little better. I made many, broke them up and scattered the about. I painted with artist’s acrylic. There is a learning curve. I saved all the scrap, broke it up, stained it and had great looking talus for the washout areas.
I used WS molds for all my rock faces, I only used 3 diferent molds but creativly eliminated repetition and achieved variety.
Some tips I learnt :-
you dont always need to fill the mold with plaster/hydrocal, try half or quater filling the molds, you can achieve different rocks from one mold. Also tilting the mold and only using various parts give you great variety.
invert, rotate and twist casts to eliminate obvious repetition.
break some casts to use as filler between other casts, also use joint compound to fill as it is workable for a longer period of time.
[#ditto]
if you mess up the paint job/colouration dont worry about it, paint it all back to white with white Kilz latex primer (I did this 4 times [banghead] before I was happy)
Hope this helps.
Karl.
When you crumple the foil kind of fan fold it in one direction then do the same thing at 90 degrees. After your plaster has set (pull the foil off before it is completely hard) and you are ready to paint, get yourself three cans of cheap spray paint in the colors you want. Spray the the three colors from three different angles ( technically 120 degrees apart like the three legs of a letter Y). No it won’t stand up to close scrutiny but it is a heck of a lot quicker and gives darn good results until you are ready for superdetailing.