DIY Battlefield, second stages

So this has taken a fair amount of time, but mainly due to this being stop-start. Doing this all in one go would be far easier, less mixing stuff, less building etc. 

I started with the divider section as a tester. this should help me see how things work and how the actual process would work. 

I started by gluing the features (in this case a curtain wall) to the board itself, letting that set, and then I attacked it with a mixture of Polyfilla, Sand, and paint mixed together. 

The aim was to provide support for the cardboard, and get that texture down. 

This first board the mixture was fairly dry, so took a long time to apply. Equally I had a longer time than normal to actually add detail and texture (below on the right).

After this, I painted the whole thing with white paint, and let it dry for more stability.

This second board was a flatter section, where I instead went straight to the mixture element and tried this time to make the mixture a bit more fluid. so that covering empty sections was easier. More paint in the mixture was good, but also was a bit trickier to make structures and features. 

My biggest concern here is how the divide will look when its all finished. I might have to add more mixture to cover it all off.

The third board and fifth board I attacked with expanding foam, as the intent here was to have some line of sight blocking features, without going to a trench level. 

So expanding foam sprayed in the rough shape of what I wanted. 

 Attack with knife to add structure.

Then add more details for duckboards and supports. Then this mixture applied to it was far more moist, almost like sand at the beach. This only went on last night, so my concern here is drying times as there is so much moisture in it. 

We'll see.

Then over to the urban floored area. Leftover floors and laser-cut MDF panels were glued down before I mixed a very wet mixture of Polyfilla and more paint. This board will have the highest density of terrain on it, so I wanted it to appear the most flat featured. If I added any features to it it was with the drier spackle mixture.

Finally the line of sight blocker. This was 2 large bars of polystyrene with some foam filler, then a separate mound of earth nearby. 

 I had attempted using some denser rubber to protect it but it was too loose.

Because I had the stuff leftover, there were some plaster impregnated bandages that I used to make the hills structure more rounded before dotting it with some harder denser Polystyrene. After that, the same wet mixture was applied, to start protecting the holes and polystyrene from damage and to give it more structure. 

It was light and strong which is ideal. 

Let this stuff all dry off then it will be a coat of grey paint, and then white. Then Watered PVA to finish. 

As well as this, I started to finish off all of my packing cases and crates for use in the flat featured board (in the background).

More to come.