howit guys......

quick question....before i paint the base of a dio....must i add the rubble before and then paint the entire base after the rubble has been put on?


thanks in advance

That depends a little bit on the diorama. There is no 'right' way to do it.
I think it depends on the rubble more than the base. If the rubble is loose debris it will be hard to paint once assembled. All the nooks and cranies will be hard to get to so I'd paint the rubble and base separately then add it. If it's just a mound or there aren't a lot of nooks and cranies then you can assemble first.
Check this out Simple Diorama

ok...well i decided to put the rubble in after i paint.i want it to look like lose rocks etc.
but what do i use to stick the rubble on the base?

I use white glue (PVA glue) thinned with water to glue down rubble, stones, etc. The slowish drying time allows you to rework the groundwork while it dries. Once I've got everything into place I generally apply another coat over everything as a sealant. It also dries clear

even though it dries clear, wont it be a little bit glossy?

Yea - the glue will be a bit glossy, that's usually covered up with an all over evening wash or pastels or both.

Adam Wilder's "Red Tide Rising" diorama was covered in a great SBS in two issues of AFV (issues 18 and 19). Adam painted the whole base, including the rubble, an off-white color to represent the mortar. He then picked out the brick colors by brush. Really stunning diorama.


Patrick

Only ever so slightly. But it's irrelevant as the entire base gets painted. The reason for using sands and natural products (in my case) is to achieve the necessary shapes and textures. The colours are added by my brush.

Unfortunately 'natural' in nature doesn't always appear 'natural' in scale...

Rudi

If you make your rubble from plaster, you can colour it when you are mixing it. Then, after you smashed to to the required size, your rubble will be painted already. After aplying it to the base (with the afformentioned PVA mixture) all that is needed is a liberal amount of pastels/pigments in the appropriate shades. To counter the slaight sheen of the dried PVA mixture, and to add another level of shading, I colour the PVA mixture as wel. For this purpose you can buy the large 'craft' bottles of Acrylic paint, which are cheap. Don't use Vallejo for this. Unless you are very rich...