Spooky Town Landscape

**Rikki** · 07-22-2008,01:39 PM

I'm making two landscapes this year for my Spooky Town pieces: one for my pirate pieces (based off Scavengerhaunt's from last year) and one for my cemetery. I finished up the cemetery landscape earlier today and am very excited about it so I thought I'd post and show pictures of the progress.

I started with a drawing of what I had in mind. A few things got changed around from the original design, though.

I started cutting out a few small pieces with my Wonder Cutter (hot wire) and put things in place on top of the entertainment center. I used 48"x18"x3/4" sheets of styrofoam and a two tier display that I'd bought last year.

I cut out the rest of my pieces and started gluing them together. I put a few things in place just to make sure they all fit.

I wanted the mountain to look smooth and natural so I covered it in aluminum foil before putting on the paper mache. This also gave it some very nice, rock-like ridges.

I mached the entire thing, even the bottom (though it's not finished in this picture) to give it some more rigidity.

The next step was the Drylock. I used a gray tinted Drylock and covered everything but the bottom. It gave a nice grainy texture and a good base color for the rocks.

On to the painting! I dry brushed a few different shades of gray over the Drylock to give it some dimension. I only did the sides since the tops are going to be grass covered.

Next I dry brushed some green on the top surfaces just in case you could see through the flocking when I was finished.

**Rikki** · 07-22-2008,01:50 PM

Next step was to start putting down the flocking. For the first layer I used Woodland Scenics dark green turf. I did it in several sections which caused some problems. You can see a division between each section where the glue didn't overlap. It wasn't a problem in the long run, though.

The second layer was done with Woodland Scenics burnt grass turf. It evened out the lines I was talking about above. I like the shade of this one and think it's perfect for a neglected cemetery.

The final layer of flocking consisted of a 50/50 mix of the two colors. This helped to smooth things out and tie the previous layers together.

The last step was to add some vines/moss. This was also a Woodland Scenics product but I don't recall the name - it's what they use to make trees and bushes. I tried to use it sparingly, so as to not overdo the effect.

Once I had the landscape finished I decided to put it in place and give it a test run. Here's how I was planning on laying things out (the empty spot is for the Rest In Pieces Mausoleum, which I still haven't bought):

After looking at it though, I decided that it was going to be too crowded with all the trees and figurines added to it. I don't want all the pieces running together when someone is looking at it so I decided that I wouldn't buy the Mausoleum after all. Here's the final decision on the layout: