¹⁄35

Building a base for a 1/16 scale figure

Recycling

I remember a short article in “Doc`s Dios” a few years ago that had no text but the hand drawn sketches were enough to show exactly how to cast and scribe buildings. It was from a guy called Carlos Elias or “Blockhaus” as many more would know him better as, today. I have since cast and scribed flat walls, but have felt this had its limits, as it gave a 2-D wall. I wanted to cast a wall that had more of a 3-D effect from the start. Now I just needed the mould.
The polystyrene foam trays that vegetables and meat come in from the supermarket are an extremely useful medium. They can be used for building up height in a dio, scribed with a ball point-pen and used as they are, for walls, or in this case, be used to make moulds.

Making the mould

I measured the picture frame base that I was going to use for width and breadth, the figure I had built for height, and with a little imagination thrown in, I made a rough sketch of how the wall was going to be.
As this was pretty experimental, I didn’t take any great care with measurements or getting everything lined up 100%. I first made a box shape. The base was the outer dimensions of the wall, and the four sides were the cut to get the total wall thickness I wanted. I used a cheap medium-temperature hot-glue-gun for fixing the styrene shapes together. This hardens almost immediately and no time is wasted. White glue takes too long to dry and hold, and other glues will only melt the polystyrene foam.
The pillar was the deepest part, so polystyrene foam was placed at each side of where this was to be. More foam was built up in the shape of the window space. The upper ledge of the wall was cut out again afterwards, as it would have taken extra thought to measure it all up from the start. Some foam was also removed nearer the bottom to give a thicker foundation base, and also, above and below the window.
Any awkward shapes that result from short cuts or roughness at this stage can be cut or sanded away, later. As this was planned as a ruin, any bumps on the mould that left holes in finished casting could be damaged to hide.