|
|
How
to make an easy display base
by Gerd
Kuijpers
--------------------
|
|
|
|
The
armour modelling business is highly focused on the display base. We, aircraft
modellers, mostly don’t like building displays, we think it is to much work
and concentrate on building our aircraft rather than gluing miniature grass to a
plaster hill. The opposite is true. Building a display is easier than painting a
cockpit or attaching ordinance. It is also very relaxing and it makes your model
look more realistic.
I made this display in fewer than two ours (without drying), it is a sort of secret runway for helicopters in the hills. You can build an existing place in the world or you can just use your imagination to make a place, like I did.
|
First
you have to have a wooden board for your base. Make
sure it is thick enough so that is does not bend when you work with plaster.
|
|
| I attaching a piece of plywood to simulate a real runway that is always a little above the rest of an airfield. The hills where made using cellular concrete which I chopped using a hammer. Just glue the pieces on with constructing glue (I used Bizon kit). The gaps and sharp edges will be fixed with the plaster. |
|
| Then cover the whole base except for the runway with a layer of plaster. Don’t make the plaster to watery so it doesn’t float away. If you want smooth hills like my example you van just model the plaster with your hands. Use a knife or something for rocky surface. |
|
| If the plaster has dried, you can paint it with thin water based acyclic paint. This is to prevent white spots after applying the grass or the rocks. Try to do this as light as possible or else your display may be to dark when you are finished. |
|
| The asphalt is made of a combination of ash and wallpaper glue powder. Filter the ash first and then mix it with the powder. You have to find out wish proportions of each component to use, because not all wallpaper glues are the same. After hat you can apply the whole mixture to the runway and spray water on top of it (not with a airbrush), or you can mix small amounts of the mixture and then put it on your runway. The asphalt can be flattened when it is still wet. If it dried completely you can rub it with a very low grid sanding paper to make it look used and you can paint lines. |
|
| There are many ways to cover the surface of your display base, you find them in the railway modelling corner of your hobby shop (Hue? Is their a railway corner in my hobby shop? :P ). There are little rocks and grass in all kinds of colors and little trees and | |||
| bushes. When you begin applying the grass or the rocks on the hills, make sure the asphalt is dry. There are special products to attach miniature grass but I use the same wallpaper glue. Just ad enough water and brush it on the surface. Before the grass can be sprinkled on top of the glue, it is better to put a newspaper under jour display, it is going to be messy and you want to use the grass that doesn’t sticks again. If the grass isn’t the exact color you imagined, just airbrush it again and don’t forget the newspaper because the airbrush blows some of the grass of. |
|
||
And that’s it, your own unique display base.
Gerd
Photos and text ©
2003 by Gerd Kuijpers
