Styrofoam Rock Formations

[Tewligan]

I've made plenty of rock formations from when I played WH40K. Go to Home Depot and get a 4'x8' sheet of foam insulation board. While you're there, get a big bottle of wood glue. Cut the foam rocks to taste (the hot wire cutter is great for this), and glue formations together to your heart's content. I bought big bottles of cheap acrylic paint and some big brushes at the craft store. I usually just do a dark gray base coat, and then dry brush with a light gray, and they're ready for action. Honestly, I've never bothered to seal them, for fear of unpleasant meltiness. I just touch them up occasionally as needed. If you want to get fancy, you can glue green flock onto them for grass/moss/whatever.

 

[Mark]

Oh, and about spray painting/hand painting - you'll always have to do some of the latter if you're looking for best results, because things with rough textures only end up looking good if you dry-brush them with at least a couple of pregressively lighter coats after painting on the base color.

How many lighter coats do you suggest?

I've made plenty of rock formations from when I played WH40K. Go to Home Depot and get a 4'x8' sheet of foam insulation board. While you're there, get a big bottle of wood glue. Cut the foam rocks to taste (the hot wire cutter is great for this), and glue formations together to your heart's content. I bought big bottles of cheap acrylic paint and some big brushes at the craft store. I usually just do a dark gray base coat, and then dry brush with a light gray, and they're ready for action. Honestly, I've never bothered to seal them, for fear of unpleasant meltiness. I just touch them up occasionally as needed. If you want to get fancy, you can glue green flock onto them for grass/moss/whatever.

Are these the type where you cut a shape, then another slightly smaller one, then maybe a third and a fourth with each one a bit smaller than the last. Then stack them up?

 

[tennyson]

As far as cutting the foam, it seems that the Hot Wire is the tool of choice. Are there any alternatives? I haven't been to Home Depot yet, so I wasn;t sure on the consistency of the foam. Will a normal knife do the trick?

 

[Mark]

As far as cutting the foam, it seems that the Hot Wire is the tool of choice. Are there any alternatives? I haven't been to Home Depot yet, so I wasn;t sure on the consistency of the foam. Will a normal knife do the trick?

Knives, saws, etc crumble the edges of the styrofoam or leave them rough in a way that makes them brittle and prone to crumble when handled. Hot wire tools "seal" the edges, so to speak. Maybe someone else can jump in here but I know there is also some restrictions on the types of styrofoam you can use. I've heard that "blue" styrofoam is more toxic when burned and is best to avoid, but I may not be quite right on that.

 

[mmu1]

How many lighter coats do you suggest?

Two ought to be enough for rocks. With perhaps another couple of coats of different shades of brown/green in a few spots to show dirt and moss, if you're really anal about rocks looking perfect, but it's easy to screw things up that way... So, two should be fine

Oh, and be careful if drybrushing gray over black... If you don't get the colors just right, it's easy to end up with vaguely bluish-looking rocks with many water-based paints.

 

[bob_the_bard]

someone mentioned using real rocks. This had honestly never occurred to me before!