i'd use chip board or cork. but if you use either of the two, use white mat board or something along those lines to contrast the base. you don't want the color of the house's material to blend in with the base material's color.

i've used joint compound in the past. you can get it cheap at any hardware store and just mix some paint into it. it sands nice and smooth once its dry. i put it over foam and wood before and turned out very nice. the only thing i would be worried about if putting it over a paper product is that it will probably warp when it drys. test it out and see.

it will warp the cardboard topo if you dont have it attched to a very solid base (wood, mdf, etc)

I think it would be eaiser building up contours using RailRoad Board...

plaster applied with a spatula...will give good contrast against the bass wood

otherwise try strips of paper glued over the frame of the contours. This can be painted or left as is after

Modelling paste dries very slowly, makes all parts in contact wet (cardboard, paper, foamcore), and shrinks.

Painter's gesso over cardboard?

I always liked gluing cardroard together then running it through a bandsaw in order to get a 'shaggy' edge to the cardboard...I will find a pic

you can try a mix of fiberglass resin and bondo...mix together with hardener of both and find a consistancy to work with......

you can also use gesso

or try a paper mache' with elmers glue....

or you can snad the contours down with a palm sander to get a cool layering effect..... i did that to 3/4 baltic birch and it came out nice..

b

spackle or some sort of ready to apply compound intended to patch holes in walls - applied over foam core works well. foam core makes it easier to get slope than chip board - and the spackle will fill in the steps to make it pretty smooth. spackle isn't really wet so it won't warp the foam core...but it does dry to a sand-able finish.

don't pay too much attention to the model - but this shows the application of spackle on foam core.

sanded homosote..wear a mask, though

that image of spackle looks just like joint compound. not sure what the difference is between the two but the outcome appears to be the same.

cpnorris
i think spackle is just a specific brand name - so it looks like what you mentioned above about joint compound is exactly what i was talking about as well.

paint on gesso on foamcore. can look like anything you want.

because ass-spackle sounds a lot better than ass-joint-compound

not sure that stuff will dry adequately for models, much less its aesthetic appeal

you have to watch out for water content in most spackle/filler compounds.... if you plan on using a water based product.... you need to seal the chip/cardboard/etc with some elmers glue or a urethane..,

there's alot of ideas...it's just a matter of how much time you have and your skill set....... i would do the resin/bondo mix and use about half the hardener so you have some time to move the mix...... then take some 150/220 sand paper to it after.......


b

Carve it from marble.

look at early Morphosis models

i ended up building the site contours from foamcore, then laid some bug-screen mesh over top before covering the entire site with drywall compound, then paint. fast drying, easy to sand smooth...worked great. i'll post pics soon.

it'll crack

i eliminated the potential for the assembly to move and then crack by using full sheets of layered foamcore (no hollow sections), mounted onto a plywood base.

I water proofed the foamcore prior to applying the bug screen/drywall compound to reduce any bending or cupping. the metal bug screen will serve as a lath, and help bind and keep the drywall compound integral. the drywall sealer and latex paint will further help to keep the whole assembly crack free.

trust me. this thing ain't crackin'.

here's the finished site model

IMHO, glue for landscapes is a pain... use double sided tape or pins, no mess, strong enough and easy to modify.

if you build it up out of chipboard or museum board, use double sided tape, the kind that's super thin on wax paper, it holds pretty hard once its built up, and its super clean... also, that tape is basically like a dry glue, and with the tape, you can cut to shape with alot of accuracy and you get a very uniform layer, the thickness is always 100% consistent so each adhesive layer is perfectly flat (which you can do with glue, but it is not quite as idiot proof, there's room for mistakes)... you can run the tape beyond the edge of each contour and rub the extra off cleanly once you've laid the countour down hard, it comes off clean sort of like rubber cement (with glue you can make a mess trying to glue perfectly to the edge)... you need the right kind of tape, but it's cleaner than glue, and if you make a mistake or want to make changes you don't have to tear up your old material, it will peel off and you can rub it clean and reuse the material, and it holds just as well, no warping... if your base is unpainted but clean and built up from a consistent color material, it looks pretty awesome... You can even build it out if matt foamcore and it would come out very clean without warping, will be as solid as if it were glued...

if you are using cork, you can pin the contours together using pins with small metal heads that are not really noticable on the surface of your landscape... because glued cork, if you ever make a mistake or need to reshape your model *sucks* to cut and repair with knife (i'm speaking from experience :p), glue will be absorbed by the cork so you'll be basically carving away at solid glue... trust me, craving away at glued cork with an exacto blade can make you want to slit your wrists... pins hold well enough, and if you need to remove a section, you can unpin, recut and repin carefully...

No mess...

Depending on the scale, if it is a very gentle slope to the water, you could still use built up contours, and make the water cut as a layer of clear plex that you slide under the waters edge piece of contour, so that the landscape material conotinues underneith the plex, but you have a reflective surface

i don't like paint on model bases, i always prefer just clean single color of museum board or cork, choose the material for the color you want at the end... you could paint cork, but IMHO a model looks more clear if its not pretending to be realistic... If there are material changes in your landscape, you can always use different material for the buildup of that surface section of landscape... well, but i've always preferred abstract models with only a few colors and materials to make a point, cleaner diagrams...

njp, sorry didn't see your last posts...

the model looks beautiful... i love how the surface curves up and creates that subtle shadowed edge... been to the maya lin exhibit in seattle?

by the way where do you work? are you from the pacific northwest?

thanks bRink. i'm happy with the results, since I haven't attempted a model like this since the old archy school days!

btw-i work in vancouver, BC.