Hey, what do you guys think?
I’m working on one of those city-streets dios, and I’m gonna need a lot of cobblestones (1/35). I tried using split lentles once years ago but they were too small. And enough AM cobblestones would be pretty expensive. Any ideas?
Thanks,
~jerry
I bought a sheet of Plastruct cobblestones as a master and cast a mold from it with liquid latex. Then I cast reproductions from plaster or water-putty. Do the same for bricks, field stone walls, roof tiles, etc.
Tamiya make sheets of cobblestone patterns, they’re on a paper backing and have raised detail, it feels almost like a felt material…pretty cheap and you can cut to size and glue down and very light! Kancali also offer a wide range of cobble mats, which are made from latex. www.kancali.com
OK - Thanks!!!
Another way is DIY - work with plaster cement, i.e., cast your base using plaster cement, then sculpt the surface into cobblestones wherever you want it to be. And if you’ll need a lot, once you get the prototype done, you may cast a mold using silicone so that the base can be reproduced time and again in resin.
A long time ago I used to paint Warhammer fantasy figures. Several of the bases I set as cobbles (being a medieval fantasy world, it looked just right).
To do this I spead a 1-2mm layer of Miliput or other malleable putty on the base, then using a small tube - I can’t remember what, I think it was the end of a biro refill or similar - pressed it into the putty and it makes small domes, which can then be painted in greys and browns to look like cobbles.
If you wanted square cobbles, I’m sure it would be easy to make a stamp out of a bit of rubber or wood. You can also do patterns like fans, or gutters etc with a bit of planning and experimentation.
Good luck!
I use cork from the DIY stores. You can buy large sheets of it cheap and it can be cut into small rectangles like bricks. You then lay the pattern as you see fit. I use lentils alot too. They make those nice smoothed out stones. If you pour plaster, you can scribe any pattern of stones using a straight edge (for neat orderly horizontal lines)or compass (for fan shaped patterns) and then a chisel or screwdriver to make your individual bricks. A quick and light brush down with a stiff brush will clean up the edges and give you some wear on your edges.
There are a few companies that make sections of different patterns that can be cut to shape and placed onto your base if you don’t feel “crafty”.
Good luck.
Thanks, guys. The dio I’m working on right now will require a steady amount of scratch work for the scenery and stuff. For example, I expect to scratchbuild a dug-in basement for at least one building. So I can certainly see geting more into the DIY-type work, although I’m not quite there yet. This one will have different types of cobblestones in different places, brick and stone walls, etc. Should turn out pretty interesting.
Again, thanks!
~Jerry
Verlinden makes various cobblestone sections and street accessories.
jthurston, let me know how you get along with scratching out the cobbles and basement. I’ve got a similar project coming and it will be large. Need to think about DIM(yself) instead of loads of Kancali and Verlindden products. SteveM