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How to make Foam Terrain for wargaming and dioramas- Part 3 -Detail, sculpting and finishing

In this part of the tutorial I will show you how I sculpt the foam to make the terrain look realistic. There are lots of different tools I use and you can improvise if you don't have hot wire cutting tools. All kinds of common tools can be used and one of the most effective things is plain old sand paper.

The important thing to think about when doing the detail work is that you work your way down to the details. Start with the large and rough work such as cliffs and hills so you get the major shapes right. Then you work your way down to the finer details.

The picture at left shows me using a wire foam cutter to rough out the major shapes of the landscape.

Once all the major landscape features are complete I begin doing the larger detail figures. I cut out a slot for the stairs then I sculpted the stairs from a piece of foam and glued it into place.

Foam terrain is flexible in this way. You can remove pieces, sculpt and cut away piece and sculpt pieces and add them in. Be creative.

In this picture I show how I use the hot wire cutter to detail the crenellations in the castle walls.

One of the best things you can do is to use sheets of sandpaper to sand down the surface (ground) of the terrain. This will give it a landscape like look with peaks and valleys. The extreme flatness of the foam is not very appealing and doesn't look natural so sand it down a bit to give it some curves, peaks, and valleys.

Once all the sculpting details are done you are ready to do the typical landscaping painting and detail adding. I don't show you how to do this in this tutorial but I do have plenty of tutorials on this process.

How to Make a Diorama

Here is a picture of the completed project.

Space Diorama (Shoebox)

You can make a fun Space diorama where the astronaut is floating in space. I give you all the artwork. And you don't even need a shoebox. I show you how to make one out of cardboard or foamboard. Make a Shoebox Space Diorama

Paper Dioramas (Tatebanko)

Tatebanko is the ancient japanese art of paper diorama making. And we have lots of them! Many of them you can download, print and make yourself. Paper dioramas

Storm The Castle Diorama Part 7: Water Effects, Make the Moat

The next installment of the massive castle siege diorama is done. In this part we add the moat around the castle. Storm The Castle Diorama Part 7