Work In Progress

Starting to place some destroyed building made from foam boards.

Starting to place some destroyed building made from foam boards.

The buildings are being texturized.

The main work on the building's texture is done and this would most likely be the final displacement of the diorama.

I have have spent some time to give the diorama a ground texture. I have tried a variety of patterns and techniques to find a suitable cobblestone texture, but none of them was satisfying enough, maybe the left part of the one on the lower left was closer to what I had in mind but it was off scale. Also, it came to my mind that the ground will be completely covered in rubbles so there's no point in making a texture... BUT, creating these tiles made me thinking: the buildings I already carved looked more like medieval castle / Northern Europe than Central Italy, so I used one of the texture I got from these trials to make a new building.

New building with updated texture (left) along the old one (right). Misses a few details but I think it's way better.

Some little details have been added to the background building and all have been primed with a mixture of plaster, white glue and water. The ground is one of the tiles used for trying groud textures reversed and then glued to the wood shelf.

Railings have being added using strecthed sprue and a 0.25 mm plastic rod.

Closeup of the balcony railings

Railings have being added using strecthed sprue and a 0.25 mm plastic rod.

Today I have applied a diluted grey as a base on the whole buildings and gave some “movement” to the rocks with random mixtures of primary red, primary yellow, white and burnt umber. Next step I’ll be giving a very light white/yellow coat to the less damaged part of the walls where the plaster hasn’t fallen off, plus adding some dust effect between the rocks to blend them better.

Added several coats of color to better match it with original walls

Added rubbles (cat littler, popsicle sticks, leftover foam). Colors will be matching in next steps.

Added rubbles (cat littler, popsicle sticks, leftover foam). Colors will be matching in next steps.

Added rubbles (cat littler, popsicle sticks, leftover foam). Colors will be matching in next steps.

Added rubbles (cat littler, popsicle sticks, leftover foam). Colors will be matching in next steps.

After further consideration and advice from fellow modelers, I decided to take some rubbles off for a cleaner scene.

After further consideration and advice from fellow modelers, I decided to take some rubbles off for a cleaner scene.

The third time is a charm! Again, I took everything out because the cat litter started to crack once dried. This time I took some plaster, PVA glue and water, spread it on a pied of wax paper, let it dry, then broke it and put it on the base with a mix of water and PVA. This time it didn't crack so I could apply Vallejo grey primer.