Sunday 3 August 2008

Flintloque - Large Farm House part seven

In an attempt to save this modelling project I have added lots of 'DAS' to the worst deformed areas of the main house to try to cover-up or re-model the blown shape. In addition I have added the second chimney, again modelled from a 'blue foam' scrap.

In greater detail; The 'blue foam' was roughly shaped with a large 'snap-off' knife' and the over-all shape sanded smooth. Once I was happy with the shape and height I had to carve 'curves' on to the inside of the chimney to fit the deformed wall. (at this stage the chimney was just roughly shaped and touching the existing wall for less that 50% of the area!)

I then used a scalpel and new blade to carve horizontal grooves and small vertical slits in to the blue foam to represent individual stones. The whole technique is time consuming, but very satisfying. When finished the carved wall/chimney looks to artificial and needs texturing. This I do with a selection of broken stones (found in the garden). I press the sharp edges of the stone in to the 'blue foam' which leaves the structure with a much more organic look, but still not finished!

I used 'DAS' to model the broken plaster over the top of the carved stones and to fill the (quite large) gaps. I then tried to even out the deformed walls with even more 'DAS'. The finished chimney is topped off with a section of plastic pen barrel, which is in turn further topped off with a small ring cut from a separate pen barrel. Once I am satisfied with the result I give the whole structure a wash of thinned filler mixed with water and PVA glue.




One point of note - the second chimney is very susceptible to being broken off and so I 'pinned the whole chimney to the main building with cocktail sticks and dressmakers pins. I later added a bamboo skewer in to the top of the chimney - it is pushed down and in to the blue foam for about one third the length of the chimney. The small section that protrudes was used to fix the plastic chimney pot.

Tony

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