I've been working on this for about a month, getting really close to finishing it all up. I have a small army of endoskeletons and resistance fighters that I am going to use this with.

Sorry if some of the photos suck, I tried using my cell phone and I *thought* some of them originally looked ok. The car you see in the one photo was actually done about two years ago, especially for this project. The base is roughly 1.5' square.







Currently at this point...

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really nice!

i'm getting ready to tackle "ground cover" on a dio. what did you use for texture? I thought about spray adhesive and actual outside rock dust/dirt.

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The only thing missing is one of the Terminator time machine crators. I get your going for the begining...or is it the end...but come on. You have to inlcude one somewhere.

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Thank you sir. What I used for the ground work was paper mache clay, I think it's called "celluclay". It comes in a somewhat loosely packed brick and is a light gray color and almost looks like powder. It's in the same isle with the FIMO and Sculpey at Hobby Lobby. Anyway, if you add a little of it at a time and just work it around with a pencil or some sort of clay tool, you get really nice ground-like texture. I also add in actual flower-bed "chat'. Once this is all down, I'll add in bits of dried plaster (for bigger rock/debris formations), and finally I'll sprinkle on some sand in random locations. The key here is "random". Add the chat, dried plaster and sand uniformly and it looks too balanced. If you want an easy and cheap source to get chat/sand, you can find it along curbs and often at street cross-roads (careful with going there!) You can also often find the same stuff along the sides of gravel roads.




I like that idea! I wish I could have had this idea from you before I started, it would have been pretty easy to make the crater, and then make a "plug" of sorts that fit inside it and blended with the surrounding ground work. That way I could have had it with or without, for whatever use I needed! It would be possible to add it retroactively, but man it would be hard to make it look right after all the different washes and dry brushing I've done. I could also make a smaller, separate dio that has this...and just have it sitting at the side. Hmmm.....

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I was gonna ask about the terrain too

Yeah, that celluclay really worked out pretty nice for most of the texture. Chat and sand works really good for scaled down gravel.

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thanks. what is chat or just a clever way to write "LASER BLAST"....

I live on a gravel road, and that is what I was thinking "rock dust". I grew up in limestone country, but down here the roads are loose pebbles like river rocks. I have some Crayola paper type clay, after it failed on my last project i'm not too keen about it.

my current project is rocky jungle type scene.

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Chat is just...well, it's hard to describe. Really small gravel I suppose? It's usually all the same rock material, not mixed, and it's usually all pretty close to the same size. The stuff I used was all grey in color and most of it can have really sharp edges. But really, anything smaller than normal gravel should work, you just have to keep the scale of what you are working on in mind. Like I said earlier, just look for the really small crushed up stuff that tends to gather near the sides of any gravel road. If what looks to you like regular gravel, but would look like a boulder to an action figure, that's too big. Unless you are looking for an action figure sized boulder. Does that make sense?

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sounds great! up north they would lay tar, then cover in the very small uniform rock like you are describing. here limestone is the most expensive and what I would call "pea gravel" or playground rocks are used everywhere.

my dio is a aprox 12x25 board mostly covered by a central structure. so I just have the boarder around it to work on. only thing I've done so far is lay down some glue for texture.

next time you make a dio (even the small crater) you should take step by step pics and write up a how to I know i'd love to see it.

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This is looking awesome.

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Yeah, pea gravel would probably work, you just have to keep the scale in mind. I'm afraid taking pictures during progress is one of my weak points. I usually finish the work and then take a photo or two, and regret missing the bulk of the build. I'll see what I can do though....probably nothing that you guys haven't already covered in this forum.




Thank you sir! I'd say I'm done, just finishing up the paint job on a few skulls...hopefully tonight.

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Just meant I look forward to seeing it all set up with some figures etc!

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Finished! I wish I had a camera that could take better photos. I have to use the flash which washes everything out, but without it, the picture gets blurry. Anyway, here we see a small Terminator squad patrolling an area looking for human resistance fighters.

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it looks awesome! impressive how you transformed the dollar tree bike and furniture! the whole thing is packed with great details and it's surprising in the full shot how small it is!

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Where did you get the plasma rifles from?

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