Creating a stone or rock wall for your diorama utilizes many of the same steps as making a brick wall, but a stone wall is much more forgiving since the lines don’t need to be precise. In fact, it’s almost impossible to screw this one up!
Start with a piece of 1″ thick insulation foam board. I primed mine with a grey color first, but you don’t need to paint it before carving. Figure out what scale rocks you want for your diorama, and start carving. I used a manicurist’s tool, but anything with a sharp tip would work. Draw out the rock shapes, being sure to vary their size and proportions. The process can take a bit of time, and I found that I needed to break up the rock carving into several sessions.
Whew, that was a lot of work!
The next step is to rough up the surface of the wall, using any irregularly shaped object in your toolbox. I used a rock that had several interesting edges. Rotate the object and the wall, so you don’t get any repetitive shapes.
Punch in the edges of random stones using a paintbrush handle or flathead screwdriver. This step creates some really nice interest and shadows to the wall surface.
All that distressing really paid off — this wall is starting to look good!
Nature isn’t monochromatic, so I added some diluted warm yellows and browns…
…and then I added some diluted grey and blacks to random stones, dabbing at the paint with a paper towel while it was still wet to make sure there weren’t any brush marks.
This step always looks scary, but the results are worth it. Coat the whole wall with diluted back wash. The black paint flows into the cracks and crevices and makes them stand out visually.
The stone wall is almost done! The black wash really added visual depth to the surface.
The last step is to dry brush the whole wall with white paint. I also went in with a fine tipped brush and added white mortar lines randomly across the surface. This step truly puts the icing on the cake. Now, it’s time to take some pictures!
This stone wall will be a great backdrop for action figure photography. It’s versatile enough to be a wall in Wayne Manor, an ancient castle, or any number of other scenes. This project is great for the beginner or seasoned builder–it can take a bit of time to carve all the stones, but Rome wasn’t built in a day!
One litter box to rule them all…
About how deep should I carve the stones?
You can vary the depth, but 1/8″ or so is what I did.
Nice! If I wanted to give it a bit of a mossy look, how would I go about that?
Typically, I would use flocking material like the kind model railroaders use. You drip watered down white glue into the cracks and then sprinkle on the flocking material–it will adhere everywhere there is glue.
You could also just use some green paint in some of the cracks. I wouldn’t go too crazy with this technique, but a few spots here and there would work well.
What type of paint is best for the washes?
I use water down acrylic craft paint.
Can you use this for an outside project?
I make miniature castles for my garden.
If not what would you suggest to protect it from the elements outside
I’m not sure how the styrofoam would hold up to the elements but I would think it could work if you sealed it somehow. Maybe a marine-grade sealant would protect it from the elements, but the squirrels and other critters might be problem.
Great article. Thanks for sharing your methodology.