Diorama is finally taking shape!

My friends, it's happening, every element of the diorama is starting to come together!

This time I actually had to make the side walls from balsa wood, and it's because the back of the house is made from wood - and to make it seamless with the base, it's walls also need to be made out of wood. And I think it's a great material after all. So far I've been avoiding it because of all the cutting, sanding, gluing and whatnot, but in the end it's probably less work than coating raw styrofoam with liquid putty. The filled holes you see in it, those are where I pinned it to the foam while the glue was setting. They were easy to fill with wood putty and the wood sits perfectly flush with the foam base, so it's great! 

Also, I tried a new method for groundwork. Instead of covering it all with air drying clay and then sprinkling sand over it, I made a mixture of sand, earth and white glue and spread it over the ground like an acrylic mud paste. While it was still wet I sprinkled more fine gravel and dirt over it and after leaving it to dry for several minutes (this can take up to half an hour) I made all kinds of impressions in the ground - tracks from the T29, Sherman tracks, and also bootprints. Now these might not be too visible right now, but trust me, they're there 😁 And paints will bring them out. 

As for the barn, I made a few pavement stones from styrofoam, I just cut a thin sheet, broke it into pieces and textured them with a toothbrush. Then I simply pressed them into the soft mud and sprinkled dirt and rocks over everything. 

Unfortunately I wasn't able to do much more, I kinda wanted to apply static grass as well, but hey, why rush things after all this time, right? I'm also not sure what to do with the empty corner, I kinda want to make the barn look more lived in with some stuff, I've been trying drums, planks of wood, bricks, maybe a small bench? Something tells me it's better to figure that out once the grass is in place because the corner won't be so empty anymore, but at the same time, it might be too late because you can't really press stuff into hard ground with static grass, so I don't know, but guess it's better to sleep that out and be wiser in the morning. 

So that's about it for now, the earth+sand+pva mixture is really amazing! Highly recommended, and I think it's more pleasant and less messy than working with air drying clay.