Monday, February 15, 2016

adventures in terrain building, part 2

Well, I've learned a few things lately...

Indoor/outdoor oil based spray paint does not play well with florists foam.  I sprayed some on a chunk of foam I had shaped into another stack of foliage, and it began to bubble and pop, like of like bacon frying in the pan.  Not a good sound to hear coming from a chunk of foam plastic.  Then the surface started to develop a liquidy look to it, as though too much paint had been used, which was true, but that wasn't paint pooling up in the crevices!  Then bits of foam began caving in.  I tried shoring it up with bits of foam I had whittled and ground off... to no avail.


chemically fried foam















and the middle part all caved in, bits of scrap stuffed in the hole didn't help

















I wanted to just give up, but I had gone too far to give up at this point, for good or bad, I had to keep trying.  I decided that maybe a lighter spray, with the can further away might work.  It did, at least the plastic foam didn't dissolve on me, but what I got was less than adequate coverage, with a lot of shiny spots left.


















And a hideous mess in the bathroom, it's too cold outside to paint, even though it's in the 20's fahrenheit.  No, I'm too ashamed to post what I've turned the bathroom sink into.

So what to do next?

I had decided to try painting the last three trees with acrylic paint, a craft paint in "Holly Green", a little darker than green green, or "Festive Green", dabbing it on with a brush.  Three foliages took a long time to paint, because florists foam has an awful lot of surface area.  A Black Hole has a lot of mass, very little surface. Florists foam has some mass, not really a lot, but an awful lot of surface area, as I had discovered during this evening's adventures.  And still there were shiny spots where the paint didn't work it's way in.
















It really isn't funny but it's really green and runny...

As I said, I've gone too far, spent too much on materials to simply pack it in now, but I'm really starting to think I may have been better off just buying a Woodland Scenics set of tree trunks, and some of their foliage foam, and go that route.

Lesson learned, but for good or bad, I must see this project through to the end.

I do hope that the road and river sections will turn out better, I really, really do...









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