Stone Slabs Street Showdown - building the base

It was a learning experience.
(This turns out to be a very long entry and got a lot of photos... )

I made a lot of mistakes, acted on impulse and bought a lot of material out of impulse as well.  So as it turns out I don't need a lot of the stuff I bought and I wasted a lot of material along the way as well.

I did a mock up by just putting together some stock paper and wood.

Then I just stuff the spaces with a lot of clay, really, a lot of clay. but as I realized that it was a waste I started to use more wood to set up the base first, to fill up the spaces so that I don't need so much clay.

got to love Juweela bricks.  I had been using them on a lot of my models.  This time around I learned something more about them: don't prime them, just paint on them.  I made such a mistake and it took me a lot more work to get it look real.  Also, it pays to put some space between them.  In reality they won't be so neatly packed together like that.

This is how it looks like after I filled in the tiny gaps between the bricks, primed, washed and added a lot of pigments.

Canon EOS 40D
Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM
1/6s f/5.6 ISO:800

So when I had learned my lessons I used a lot more wood to make some framework under bigger wood panels so that I don't have to fill the spaces with expensive clay again.

And when It's done I just put a thick layer of clay on top, and start sculpting the surface to make them look like stone slabs.  I smooth out the surface by dripping a lot of water on top of it and smooth it with finger. It was quite messy actually. I sprinkled some sand on it so that it got more stone like texture.

This is how it looks like after priming an air-brushed.  Back when I was trying to smooth it out I used a lot of water, so at the end there were a lot of 'spikes' as the clay behaved like whip cream.  I ended up having to clip away the spikes to make it look more natural.

Canon EOS 40D
Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM
1/6s f/5.6 ISO:800

I know it isn't a good thing to re-cast, but this is only for me and I am not selling it so I hope secret weapon won't mind.  I got a huge 50mm base from Secret Weapon's sack of crap, and re-casted a sewer cover (man-hole) with green stuff. It then was put near the path that cuts through the stairway.  I am hoping that it would create a sense that there is something more out there outside the boundary of the base.

This is how the path looks like.  I traced lines on the path so that it looks more like concrete road in Hong Kong.

Canon EOS 40D
Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM
1/6s f/5.6 ISO:800

Basing - bricks tiles laying

I had always been living in Hong Kong and got used to seeing bricks road and bricks walls because of our British colonial times.  So for building miniature bases I had always wanted to use mini bricks.  These mini bricks come from PK Pro: they are real ceramics and brick and chip like real bricks.  However I would prefer them to be a bit thicker, but I guess I can always lay them flat on a horizontal surface.

So the first step is to lay down the 'cement' on the base.  I used miniput because I thought it would behave more like real cement.  To its credit it really did, but not as 'sticky'.  At the end some of the bricks fall out and I had to glue them back.

It's not easy to make it flat like this, took me forever with the sculpting knife to make them reasonably flat.  Keeping it wet though coz the wetness could keep them sticky.

Then on it's all about hard work of laying them down one by one.  I should have measured and set some kind of guidelines so that they line up better.  Since this is my first I didn't try any other alternative patterns. Chipping them into smaller bits can be tricky. I ended up using model flat clipper to snap them.  The loose bits got used to fill in the little gaps between the tiles.  Pressing them down on the white stuff is kind fun.  I could have space them out better so that it look more real.  Notice I chipped some of the bricks so that it appear more convincing.

 And it's done.  It look convincing but it does look a bit boring,I could have thrown a broken tile or cracked ones in to make it appear more realistic.  But this is my first so I guess it turns out ok.  Thanks for reading.

Here is an alternative designed I made, haven't decided on which mini could use this though...