In my next dio i was going to make a snow covered cliff, with shelves of snow in in etc. We have some square black rocks in our garden so i went out, armed with a chisel and hammer. I coudn't even make a mark on it. I was just giving up when i saw a log which my dad had cut down a few days earlier. It had ben cut diagnally. I cut the sawed bit off with a saw and added a splotch of grey paint, a few piles of snow, and hey presto, a fantastic cliff. It looks great and when the dio is finished il post a pic.

How do other people make cliffs?

I got some Woodland Scenics rubber molds of rock formations, etc. to cast with plaster/hydrocal, or resin. You can make your own by finding a flat pan or box of suitable size with raised edges. Take a piece of aluminum foil (the thin stuff used for wrapping food), crinkle it up and carefully partially smooth it out. It should have a hard-edged bumpy and lumpy surface. The amount of smoothing or flattening you do will determine the amount of texture on the surface. Spread out the foil in the bottom of your pan or box and then pour in your casting medium. Make sure the piece of foil is large enough to form an inner lining up the sides in its' pan so that you don't have casting medium leaking under the foil.

I would suggest purchasing green florist's foam, which is very easily cut to the desired shape and then covering it with celluclay or plaster before adding the vegatation etc. To simulate rocky outcrops and the like, I would use sculpey as a cheap modeling clay that is easy to work with... Much cheaper than Milliput when you have a lot of area to cover and you can heat the groundwork before adding the plastic models...

STYROPHOM!.. (excuse the miss-spelling)
People under estimate the power of styrophom!.. Grab some of that stuff.. you can use sever layers of it to show shelves and what not. Once you got a bit of it cut out.. run your cutter along the side of it, little bit will fall off, makes it look real and random.
Best of luck with the rocks

Mix of water , white glue and toilet paper will make a nice mash for forming what ever u want over styrofoam or wooden sceleton. i also use a plaster mix with white glue in it that makes it dry very very slow istead of solid plaster so i can reworkit for almost an entire day and form what ever cliff, hill or anything u want

I build a base of packing styrofoam, then cover it with celluclay or spackle depending on the desired look.

Cut the shape(s) you want from rigid foamboard, glue them in place and then cover them with plaster bandage, While the bandage is still wet, you can sprinkle on your ground cover, or wait till it's dry and finish off with pastels, etc. This also works good for trenches, foxholes, shellholes, etc. Also, if you can find it, there is a product called Flek Stone, although it might be marketed under different names, which gives you a stone finish in a spray can that will stick to just about anything. Usually it's in craft stores, but a lot of the big home improvement stores are starting to carry it.

Art

Just one more thing. Get a photo of the same type of cliff that you want to model, and study it. model what you see, not what you think you see. If you made up a tree, you'd say that trees are brown on the trunk, and green leaves... but If you study the specific tree, you would see the actual color - greys, purples, yellows, reds, etc. The same goes for anything...what makes the cliff it's shape? horizontal banding? protruding boulders? small brush? the specific color, is the cliff eroded sandstone or cut marble slabs (like in a quarry)? Any of these details will help in pulling off a better model. Then you might be led to a specific technique for rendering it's shape, maybe carving up plaster...

Hey, ive done the base of my dio and put the cliffs in. I need to put the snow and figures in but i really thing the rocks look real. (been made out of wood and all). Have a look at my photos.

Like Biggles I also use the molds from Woodland Scenics and in my opinion they are excellent. They also form very, very nice bases for vignettes and dios.

I have to agree. Rigid foamboard, Hydrocal or Durham's, and Woodland Scenics rock moldings make the best dio croppings. Woodland Scenics also makes a pigment product that you can color the rock with that looks FANTASTIC!!! You can buy rigid foamboard in thicknesses up to 2 1/2 inches and as thin as 3/8 inch and it can easily be cut and shaped with a razor saw. Hydrocal is a powdered gypsum product (drywall) and can be mixed heavy for slow drying with more workable time, or, mixed light to dry in a few minutes. After drying it can be carved quite easily with a hobby knife or dental picks making a formation unique to your visionary ideas.
Hope you heard, here to help. Cuhail