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First Try at Sculpting Urethane Foam

The foam had a very nice scale texture and color for sand and it was tempting to leave it alone but the dust would have been a never-ending problem without anything to seal it. In the end my thick paint and acrylic medium not only sealed the foam but completely hid the nice texture, so texture needed to be reapplied. Here is the base coated with the finest, sifted sand I have but it was immediately clear that this was too much texture. (above photo) So there I was, forced to sand my sand. (Sanding sand must surely be just one step up the futility scale from pounding sand, but when you’re learning as you go, things like that happen.) I worked at this until I was back to a level of texture that seemed noticeable without being too much and here is that step, with another thin coat of the Buttermilk paint added. The sides are still just coated with the tinted medium. (first photo below) The bits of color are test patches of a wash (or filter, if you prefer) with thinned Polly Scale Panzer Dark Yellow in one spot and some assorted pastels in another.

I decided on the wash and followed that with a traditional dry brush of Polly Scale Soviet Sand and Testors acrylic Armor Sand. I finally dusted it with light pastels that I had also used on the Sahariana to tie them together of the base. And I also gave the sides a final coat of Polly Scale Brown. And here is the result, along with a close-up of the corner that had been broken earlier in the project. Invisible mending is our specialty (second and third photos below).