I've been messing around with foam insulation for dio pieces for a while now, but usually gravitate towards walls and structures. Some of the great posts lately by lavenderlad and Short Bus got me off my butt to try some outside sets.

I did this one to be used in versatile settings. I figure it works well enough with my ancients, as a ruin; my victorian era crew as maybe something in the american west; and also as an alien landscape to be explored in my sci-fi verse.

Did some test shots, and here's what I have so far. This one is meant to be Ajax having a breakdown of his Hopper while exploring a cliff on a newly discovered habitable Fringe planet.















The night that I finished this I took some stuff outside for some pics, but it was cut short because of how humid it was out. Got a couple decent shots focused on some ancients customs. And while it's not impressive, that's the real moon in a couple of those.

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Very nice dio. Really like what you did with it, making it versatile for your different verses is a great idea. Love the outdoor pics.

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yes yes yes! another genre mastered! amazing quality set and being planned out to be used with all your eras is great!

That's great stuff. So do you have an extra house somewhere that you display all of this stuff?

That is just amazing... How did you sculpt the terrain? It looks pretty darn realistic, man! I love it!

-Todd

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thanks guys.

Todd - I mostly used a wood burning tool with different shaped attachments. Glue various pieces and scraps together for the rock formations, then tear into them with the tool for the harder edges and such.

Also then used textured paint (sand, moss and gravel were what I had on hand) to really help the final detail.

That being said, I still see some places here that are a bit too apparent as unfinished styrofoam. So I think I'll dig back into it soon with the wood burner

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Awesomely done.

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Hey Spin - I've seen you comment a couple times about space when it comes to foam work. Granted, for the built up pieces like this (landscapes) you probably need to at least have some dedicated shelving.

But for my castle interior/dungeon sets, my street pavement, even the stone floor for my greek dio, everything I do is modular and easily broken back down. This is a big chunk of it right here, in the corner of a basement closet. So you really don't have to dedicate space to have them out all the time.

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#inside drbindys closet

Spiffy

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Nice work. Are you up to answering more questions if someone gets into this?

absolutely

I feel like I'm a bit more skilled when it comes to walls and facades, but getting some experience with rocks also.

Other customizers you have to include in the round table are joemichaels70, who as far as I'm aware, kind of pioneered the use of styrofoam for landscape displays for our scale, at least here at JCs (understanding the techniques have long existed for model railroaders), lavenderlad who did something epically scaled with his, Cap who might be the first person to use foamboard for Joes ever, and regularly proves himself to be the foam whisperer (and also an expert with the wood burning tool), and Short Bus Kustoms who has stepped up on that front lately as well. Also, though I've not seen him around lately, meddatron, who does the most amazing urban scenes with foamboard that I've found

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So, maybe that customizing cabal of cleverness needs to add more stuff to the wiki. <hint, hint>
I know there's a bit out there, but more and in one place is always better.

How do you attach the walls and floors when you pull a dio out to photograph? I ask because I have a couple foam insulation dios for my Minimates from a guy that uses magnets to hold the different pieces together so they can be broken down for storage/shipping.

I've had an idea for a dio that's been simmering in my brain for a long while now. Seeing what you are all doing with this foam insulation is really edging me closer to making that dio a reality.

I know this has been asked and answered before but I'm getting older and forgetful so forgive me for asking again. What are you using to paint the foam insulation? Does regular spray paint eat away at it like it does packing styrofoam?

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magnets are perfect, and will ultimately be the end game for me as well. So far most of those sets are just propped up and supported. I added dowels with corresponding holes on the first couple I did, and would repeat that process, with glue added, for anything designed as permanent.

For photos I don't need anything more stable than just propping them up, but if I were to display any of them anywhere outside of my shop, I'd go magnets for sure, just to preserve the modular aspect.

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