On today's episode of The More You Know...

My friends, the vignette is starting to take some shape...

There are several new things I tried, some intentionally, some not so much, so let's go through them: 

Softening the insulating foam with strong white spirit - this is fantastic if you want to shape the terrain or impress the model's tracks deeply into it, making sure it'll sit nice and tight. The Manger's White Spirit which I use softens it for a few hours, then it goes back to normal. Modelling specific thinner doesn't do anything with it though 😁

Adding texture to modelling clay - holy moly, when you spread the clay on your base by rolling it with a toothpick, you can achieve some sick looking texture! 

Using wood putty as diorama texture - well, it has some fine grain to it, it's super fine though! Not sure if it can be used for weathering purposes because it's not as sticky and it's also kinda hard to blend, but the texture it gives when you stipple it is interesting! 

Making super smooth sides of the base - this last bit excites me and pisses me off at the same time. I bought the wood filler for this very purpose. I just smeared it on the sides with my fingers, pressing it firmly into the foamy texture. After it dried I sanded it - and I was surprised how extremely smooth the results were! It also reinforces the foam, making it much harder. 

Unfortunately I didn't know this sooner, and as such this base was met with the same fate as all my previous ones - the straight bottom got slightly deformed by handling, even when I was super careful the whole time. I tried to fix it in numerous ways, but the more I was trying, the more damage I was doing! I was so ANGERY, I was literally fuming! 🤬 

I decided to give up, I'll sand some last imperfections on the walls and keep the bottom edges the way they are. I did some more filling on the bottom after taking those pictures, but apart from that there's absolutely nothing I can do about them at this point. It's so discouraging when you have high hopes for something and then it fails, and it sucks even more when it happens at the very beginning of something, like in this case the vignette. What can I say... you'll be probably the only people to know so much about this issue - after all it won't be noticeable on the final 360 shots and probably just a little on the pictures. I just gave up on it and accepted it... 

But what's important is that I came up with a solution for the future - either use the wood filler to reinforce the foam immediately after cutting it so it doesn't get deformed, or even better, and I came up with this as I'm writing this post - get those large kitchen cork sheets, you know which ones... and glue them on the bottom of the base. They're flexible but they retain their shape, and once the sides are filled and sanded it won't be even visible 😁