SPA Modeler

Oh the shame - Quite frankly I should delete this thread…

So my grand idea of a sculpted clay base with a nice Motte and some ditches died a death. The damn airdry clay kept cracking after 24 hours – this was the THIRD attempt.





So having lost most of the weekend arsing about with this and running out of time (it has to be in on Wednesday) we went down the Paper and paste method – Crude but at least we had something.



Annoyingly – because the Motte is now half the size we’d intended, it also meant that the building we’d constructed we too all too big – so we’ve had to modify them quite a bit.



So we will get something together – but it’ll be a lash-up and not as good as we’d intended, but what started as a bit of fun, has no turned into a royal PITA – I’m just looking forward to getting it over and done with so I can get back to the Saturn V.

Cheers

Stuart

Oh no !!

That is really sucks, to say it mildly.

I am nevertheless sure you will make a good motte and castle in the end!

Thumbs up!

- Kari

Yes, thats an experience you dont want to have. The secret is: several THIN layers, otherwise there will be lots of tension. Learned it the hard way too.

But:

Good solution with the newspapers. When they look too rough, try wood glue/fine sand mixture and you dont see nothing of the newspaper and have a very "earthy" surface. Again thin layers is the solution here. If it takes too long, you can speed it up with a hairdryer. Carefully, of course.

I second the white glue/sand mix. In my experience it works best on a base with a similar color.

Sand + washing looks good, but Tamiya Buff or similar will do it too.

Ah yes... School projects.... I was so happy when my children aged out of that phase...

thanks for the advice on the landscaping - I'll try that next time I do something like this - as it is I painted it green and then used PVA glue and Flock.

Stikpusher wrote:Ah yes... School projects.... I was so happy when my children aged out of that phase...

Tell me about it - i love how the school's just assume you have everything in order to do this kind of stuff

Well as it is we completed it last week and got it in on time - it ended up being a real team effort with my daughter, my wife and myself all pitching in on the construction and painting - I mainly did the figureing out how to build it...

Here it is in all it's non-1/72 scale glory - it's not what I had in mind when I started but it was my daughters project so we'll leave it at that - she's happy with it so that's all that matters. Maybe not a model as such, but more a craft project.



It has given me a taste for doing this kind of work though, and I can see a future project where I'll try and do something a bit more 'model' like on a larger scale - I think it could be fun.

Regards

Stuart

p.s. - oh and she won first prize with it!

That actually looks pretty good. Now that you've got the figures in the mail, time for you to build another proper Norman Motte and Bailey Castle.

That is excellent! I like it very much; your daughter has every reason to be proud. Congrats on the First Place for her. That is awesome. You should get a shot of the First Place ribbon next to this castle.

Between the setback of the clay cracking and the deadline I think you did a pretty good job. Congratulations to your daughter on winning the first price.