In this part of the tutorial we remove most of the original materials and replace them with the actual buildings and walls.

I will show you how we do this and we will also take a look at some of the shaping of the buildings.

I also have a video at the bottom of the page. It shows this stage of the project.

Ok, in part 1 we did the design work on paper then we used pieces of foam to get all the rough shapes of the buildings. Most importantly so we could do the layout and get it all to look right. In this part of the tutorial we take all that stuff out and replace it with the actual buildings. And we get them rough shaped so they look good.

Here is a look at it part way through the process. I have replaced the large walls in the front. All the towers and buildings in the back are still to be replaced.

This picture gives you a good look at the end of this stage. All the buildings and walls have been replaced with the new shaped ones.

The GateHouse is the main entrance to the castle. This is a picture of it. You can see how some buidings are assemblies of pieces of foam glued together.

And this would be a good point to talk about glues and adhesives. Whenever working with any kind of foam you should test the adhesives. Some will actually melt foam.

We used white glue in some instances and we used flex paste for any large gaps.

The white glue is of course much cheaper than the flex paste so you probably want to use that a lot more. The flex paste is really excellent for filling in cracks and glueing unusual shapes together or filling cavities. And it forms a stronger adhesion.

Flex paste is available on amazon.com:

Flex Paste, 16oz

And one thing about the flex paste is that once things dry you can use it later to fill in any small gaps or defects.

Let's take a look at the castle section of the diorama. It is higher than the rest of it. So we built up an extra layer that you can see here. And we can work on this whole section right on the table. Makes it a lot easier.

And this picture gives you a really good sense of what we are trying to do. Carve and shape all the major architectural details.

Here is another look at some of the architectural details. This is one of the towers.It's upside down right now.

And just a quick look at actually sculpting and carving the shapes. You can use a wide variety of tools Here are some that we use:

• Hot wire foam cutter
• Hot knife
• Sandpaper
• Belt sander
• Knifes
• Hobby Knives
• X-acto knifes
• Wood saw

The process is pretty much the same as the diorama. start with raw pieces, cut them to a rough shape then cut them down to the desired shapes.

Ok, so let's take a look at where it stands right now. This is the end of stage two. Lots more work to do. Let's continue on to Part 3

Here is the video of Part 2:

Continue on to part 3 where we make the plaster terrain on the battlefield

My Book:

How to Make Fantasy and Medieval Dioramas

This books shows you how to make fantasy and medieval dioramas using many commonly available tools and materials. There are over 100 pictures and illustrations showing you how to make great dioramas in fantasy and medieval styles. Chapters include basics, water effects, terrain tips and special effects like electricity and small motors. Tutorials include how to use foam, plaster of paris and paper mache to make great looking dioramas.

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