Home Forums Terrain and Scenery Mud Walls

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  • #54790
    Avatar photoAngel Barracks
    Moderator

    Has anyone made any walls like this, do you have any pictures, and how did you do it?

    For 6mm I have applied liquid green stuff over an MDF wall, but for bigger buildings this could prove costly.

    #54792
    Avatar photoSteve Johnson
    Participant

    I’ve used fine surface polyfilla, diluted with pva and then painted it on. You can add in fine sand to the mix or simply put it on after. You can carve in the visible mud bricks before or after applying the filler; I’ve seen both ways used. Personally I prefer to carve them before so that the mud ‘plaster’ is on top of the bricks so to speak.

    #54796
    Avatar photoPatrice
    Participant

    Um (perhaps it doesn’t look so nice on the pics below) we mixed white glue and cheap acrylic paint of the required colour; and sand on some of the buildings, teddy bear fur and cat litter on a roof, etc.

    http://www.argad-bzh.fr/argad/en.html
    https://www.anargader.net/

    #54812
    Avatar photoStroezie
    Participant

    Hey Michael,

    all these Conan posts of yours have rekindled my interest for CROM.

    So I decided to see if I could build me one of these little domed houses.

    I thought you might be interested so I took a picture before I start adding filler/pva crete and paint.

    The floor plan is 5×5 cm , the walls are 3,5 cm high and the whole structure is 6,7 cm to the top of the dome.

    If I like the finished product and decide to build more I’ll probably make the domes a little less tall but this was a quicky build so I didn’t bother.

    Cheers,

    Stroezie.

    #54814
    Avatar photoSilent Invader
    Participant

    I use Knauf Dry Wall Easy Plaster over foamboard that is first brushed with glue. Ignore what’s going on in the photo as it’s being used for a different technique but this is what it looks like:

    Silent Invaders mud walls

    It can be carved, sanded and sealed. I say ‘can’ but for mud walls I really should say ‘must’, as it’s intended for large-ish sections of wall not 28mm buildings. It’s a relatively labour intensive solution and I doubt it’d work well for the very small scales but I like working with it and I like the result. 🙂

    Anyways, this is the finished effect:

    Silent Invaders Mud walls

    It’s been painted with DIY emulsions. (Valspar from B&Q)

    #54821
    Avatar photoRhoderic
    Member

    I’ve experimented a lot with this kind of stuff, but I’d say my go-to method continues to be my first. DIY store wall filler (of the finer-grain variety) over foamcore (or thick cardboard or whatever), dabbed with a slightly moist sponge to texture it grainy and then gently pressed with my thumb or knuckles to make the texture softer and rounder while maintaining a hint of that graininess achieved by the sponge-dabbing. It still gets a bit more grainy again once it’s dried – and some of that graininess may of course be lost again once you paint over it. Thus, once you’ve got a feel for it, you can easily “modulate” the degree of graininess using various texturing techniques (like dabbing with different materials of different degrees of dryness or moistness) and softening excess graininess afterwards with extra layers of paint or PVA.

    If you’re up for experimenting before modelling your final piece, try what I described above a number of times with varying amounts of PVA glue mixed in with the wall filler. With large amounts of PVA mixed in, the filler will crack when it dries. I promise nothing, but with just the right mix you may be able to achieve a subtle sort of cracking as of mud render that’s dried too fast under the hot sun. The PVA will also result in the dried mix having a softer texture than straight wall filler.

    Really, mud walls and the like are some of the most fun elements of scratchbuilding terrain. There are countless ways to do it, hence my various experiments. Another one I’ve been playing around with after learning of it on LAF is using a mix of PVA glue and talc (the real microsilicate stuff, not the substitute talcum powders made from cornstarch or similar due to health concerns).

    But if you just want to get on with it then just pick one method, or improvise one yourself using your instincts: Volume and texture are the two things you’re after. Plenty of materials will give you volume, though of course some may have other drawbacks (weight, labour-intensiveness, etc). For texture, you first need to get a feel for what degree of graininess the material will attain on its own once it’s dry, and then you can fall back on the various ways of modulating it before it’s dried (dabbing, pressing down, etc) and/or after (painting, sanding, etc).

    #54831
    Avatar photoDarkest Star Games
    Participant

    Looks pretty good SI!
    Another technique is to put the spackle/plaster on and drag an old and very dry brush across it (preferable a wide one with short bristles) then drag another slightly wet brush across it. This will put all sorts of details into the mix and the wet brush will soften some of them so it isn’t quite so stark.

    "I saw this in a cartoon once, but I'm pretty sure I can do it..."

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