Afghan/NWF rocky hill goes VERTICAL

A while ago I was suddenly hit with what I thought was a very good idea -- to try to use the same kind of WOOD-CHIPS I used to build a nice little rocky hill (LINK to prior blog post) in a different way -- specifically, to turn them on their ends and use them VERTICALLY, instead of stacking them horizontally. I thought this might give a more dramatic, "spire"-like effect. But I was very busy with work and family, and also other hobby-related stuff, so I didn't get around to putting the idea into practice for a while.

Then I came across this pair of images on the web, and they gave me the final push to get the "vertical" wood-chip hill done.

The first comes from Lord Roberts' autobiography "41 Years in India," and is a very striking sketch of the battlefield of Kandahar, as seen from the hills above the village of Gundigan. The most prominent terrain feature is Baba Wali Kotal - the high pass through the mountains outside Kandahar...

...the second is a perhaps even more striking 1880 photograph of a portion of Baba Wali Kotal itself:

Both images struck me as lending themselves to being created in miniature - at least in an impressionistic, "high concept" amateur terrain-maker way - with "vertical" wood-chips.

I worked on this project just before my family and I moved house. My wife was not very happy that I was spending time on a hobby project while there was so much else to do, but I knew if I didn't finish before we moved, it would take months, maybe longer, before I'd manage to get back to it. I finished just in the nick of time -- and I also spent endless hours, unto days, packing, moving, driving back-and-forth, etc., etc., in service of my family. We moved on the day of New Years Eve - December 31st - and started 2012 in our new digs, which are currently under renovation, but will be very nice when we're done.

The move went pretty well, and I'm happy to say I think this new hill turned out quite nicely. When the time arrives, I plan to build at least one more, for use together as the tall hills or low mountains on both sides of various Afghan/NWF passes.

Here's some details to go with all the WIP pics below:

1) I picked up the baseboard piece for a very inexpensive price at my local lumber yard. I thought it was some kind of MDF/Masonite but it was incredibly strong/stiff - more so than even double-tempered Masonite in my experience - which was a good thing, once I managed to cut the shape I wanted out of it! Still not really 100% certain what it is though.

2) - Used rubber cement to glue the styrofoam down to the baseboard (did a test on a small piece first, and it worked very well).

- Used my handy-dandy - especially for this project - HOT GLUE GUN to glue the wood-chips to the styrofoam, and also to piece together the "jigsaw puzzle"-like interior structure of the 2 upper contours, also made from styrofoam.

- Used 3 long "cocktail sticks", in addition to the hot glue, to help fix the third - top - contour into place, impaling it firmly into the piece below.

3) Used my usual Elmer's Wood Filler to spackle the cut foam, simultaneously strengthening it while adding some nice texture.

4) Brushed on full-strength white glue where I wanted the pebbly texture to match my terrain board ground-cover, then strategically placed a few larger, more prominent pebbles, before pouring on Home Depot "Soil Erosion" ballast (a far less expensive alternative to model railroad gravel/ballast, which comes in handy for large terrain projects).

5) After the ground-cover dried, I collected all the excess ballast, then used an EYE-DROPPER to apply a coat of Woodland Scenics SCENIC CEMENT, to add another layer of fixative.

6) I skipped using black spray-primer, in favor of an inexpensive can of flat interior black latex house-paint, in order to avoid doing damage to any mistakenly unspackled spots of carved styrofoam. Better safe than sorry, despite the longer paint application time -- which I'm happy to say my youngest daughter - Sarah - helped me with a great deal. THANK YOU, SARAH!

7) I think that's about it, except for the colors:

- base coat of BLACK

- heavy coat of BROWN

- strong dry-brush of a 50/50 mix of CARAMEL and BLACK

- lighter dry-brush of MUDSTONE (dark shade of khaki from Delta Ceramcoat)

- very light highlight coat of SANDSTONE (pale shade of khaki from Delta)

- a few spots of medium grey, highlighted with light grey, on a speck of rock here or there.