Building Teaspoon's Lava Rock Diorama, Part 1

Scrapping an Old Prize Winner

Last time we finished our pet and generated his stats. Now we need to make the Teaspoon diorama.

This board is very old, as you can tell, from back when using mulch and wood chips was the coolest thing to do. It’s pretty busted up. I made it when Shadespire first came out, and I actually won best painted Shadespire warband with it. If I pull this piece of bark up it should even be magnetized, because that’s where the leader stood. It was the skeleton boys.

I played a lot of Shadespire when it launched and I really enjoyed it. It just got to be too many cards. I didn’t like that you had to buy all the expansions even if you didn’t want to play those figures, because you needed the cards.

Anyway, I’m going to scrap it. Rip all of this out. It came right out of the shadow box frame because I hot glued it, so I’ll throw this in the train bits and reuse all of it.

Rebuilding the Foam

I popped the mulch strips off and I’ve got a little room in the front here, so I’m going to flip this over and cut the bottom layer off so it sits recessed in the frame. I want to be able to build up on it. I should probably map out a plan before I get too destructive.

I shaved the bottom layer off because I wanted it sitting down in the diorama, and I was trying to recycle all the foam from the old board, which is why there are off-cuts everywhere. The back is going to sit slightly higher than the front, and I’ll bevel this so it slants down.

Then I thought about it again and took the wire cutter and scraped the whole top level off. I did hit some of the base material and it ripped my wire, which is exactly what I said I wanted to avoid, but that’s okay. We’re rolling with it.

This tiny box cutter is probably not the best tool, but it’s what was sitting on my desk. There’s no tool better for the job than the tool you can reach at the exact moment you want to do the job. I stand by that.

I had this Loctite superglue I thought was almost empty and had glued itself shut, so I cut the lid off expecting a couple of drops, and there’s enough in there to glue everything down.

The Foam Melted, Which Is Fine

Scaffolding’s in place underneath, ready for filling material on top. There’s a bit of height variation, and the goal is a volcanic reef kind of thing, with most of this reading as water.

I’m making sure the superglue melts the foam. I’m hoping it melts it together, and then I’ll come back with white glue, because there’s going to be a lot of white glue involved in this anyway.

It literally melted. So now the piece is one solid chunk. Probably not the safest thing to do. Now it’s time to get it covered up.

Making Cork Stop Looking Like Cork

Different thicknesses of cork, a whole bag of different sizes. This is how I made the base, too.

You take the cork pieces, glue them down, and then rip the top off so it isn’t obviously cork. I don’t want an obvious semicircle shape, so let me change the angle a bit and you can get an idea of the dimensionality.

Once it’s based, you come in with a pair of pliers and rip the top off. I’m intentionally not just plucking it. When you do this you expose the more fibrous part, and you get that texture instead of an obvious piece of cork.

It’s really easy to throw cork on a base, and no matter how you paint it, it’s going to look like cork. Very few places in nature are actually flat on top. Ripping the top off and getting it down in there is the difference.

A few notes on doing it:

• Longer fingernails help. You’re pulling and rolling it back to break off the edges.
• Don’t use a knife. You don’t want to cut it, you want to rough it up.
• Pliers work, but be careful. They can get obvious. Sometimes you just want to scrape at it and mess with it.
• Flat spots are okay. Once you’ve got it going, leaving a few is fine.
• Save every chunk you rip off. Mix those in later with PVA and paint to blend the texture into everything else.

That’s the secret to using cork and not having it look like some dude threw cork on a board.

Now it’s starting to look like something. I’ll throw this piece in the corner to hide what’s going on there. Corner boy. Little corner boy.

Also, make sure you put your finger right in the line of the dull razor blade for optimum safety. That’s not professional advice. If you’re dumb enough to listen to me, that’s your own fault.

And I’m not going to make you watch me dig all the cork off the top. Watch, though: if you pull too hard you take off a ton of cork, like I just did. I did exactly what I was telling you not to do. Like I always do.

Score Everything Before You Glue

Before we glue, I’m going to score the bottom of the big pieces with the knife so there are places for the glue to soak into the cork. The smaller ones aren’t a big deal, but rough up the bottoms or the whole thing peels off later.

I kept this one piece intentionally flat because I wanted a flat platform to work with. I’ve covered the thing in glue, and I wanted the holes filled without it being obvious. If there are holes that are obviously filled in, then you just have obviously filled holes.

I’m building up texture. None of this is going to be perfectly locked in at this stage, but there are so many layers going on top that it’s fine. I’m breaking everything down finer and grinding it in, trying to find the smaller pieces of cork so there’s no obvious glue line, because that’s one less thing to fix later.

Glue, Alcohol, and a Dollar Store Cutting Board

The glue mixture isn’t only glue. It’s glue and isopropyl alcohol, and I probably need a little more alcohol in it. With enough alcohol it keeps flowing down into the cracks instead of sitting in obvious puddles.

However much glue you think you need, use way more, and have something underneath that’s going to catch it. There are big puddles of glue under this right now and that’s fine.

My cutting mat at the moment is one of those cheap flexible cutting boards from the dollar store. I like them because they’re extremely flexible. I can almost fold it in half as long as I don’t crease the edge, so all the dried glue pops right off. Even if the piece ends up glued to the board, we’re fine.

The other thing I keep at my desk is a leather-handled razor. I pop the blade out and use it as a bench scraper to clear all this off, so I don’t have to reach for my other tools.

You’re Gluing Trash Together

Now I’m sprinkling more chunks into the line of glue I just laid down. This is the fun part. You can’t mess it up. You’re literally just gluing trash together.

How could you possibly glue trash together incorrectly?

We’re using this mainly to hide where the salvaged pieces of foam meet, and to cover the holes in the foam, because we’re still going to hit it with sand and other cool things. The goal is to get all this trash glued together tonight and get sand on it. I’ll let it dry a little first so the sand doesn’t obliterate everything. It doesn’t need to be bone dry, just dry enough that the cork doesn’t come off with the excess sand when I knock it back.

No such thing as too much glue until you have put too much glue. You’ll be very aware at that point.

Leave a Crevice

One more thing before I wrap up, about this little hole right here.

Spots like this are where you add characterful elements that kick a diorama up a notch. I could put a skull down in there. The glint of some treasure. A tentacle coming out, or a claw. I’m intentionally leaving that crevice because it draws the eye, and you want little Easter eggs for the people who are actually looking.

On the flat spots I’ll add basing texture, and I left a foundation in the places I might want vegetation or plants. I can always scrape it off once it’s glued in. I might also hit the whole thing with matte spray after the glue dries, since a lot of this is just kind of sitting there. Matte spray won’t lock it permanently, but it’ll hold long enough for the paint and the rest of the glue to do the real work.

What Went Wrong Overnight

I came down to check it because I had a feeling I’d used a little too much glue, and the thing I was afraid would happen happened. It pulled in the corner.

So I’m flipping it back around, because my desk has a slant. Now everything runs the other way. Cardboard box with packaging material on the floor underneath, so the glue runs to that corner and drips down instead of pulling on the frame itself. And if it does stick, I’ll peel it off, because it’s Elmer’s.

I’m pretty happy with how this looks already. It’s turning out great. I still need to paint that Bellwoken guy in the back, and my plan is to have him done this week for the Bellwoken competition. I need to paint something for Westfalia’s competition too, and that one’s due on the 3rd.

But it’s already looking pretty good in my opinion, even though we’re still in the glue trash phase.

See you tomorrow.