writes:
I enlisted an acquaintance of mine to make the base from wood. Meanwhile, I planned the position of the figs on paper.
Once the base arrived, the 25mm holes for the figures were easily made with a 1" drill bit - but I'm told there is no perfect 20mm equivalent drill bit available here in the States. For two of the kids, I conveniently placed them on hills to avoid the problem, and for Lily, I drilled a slightly smaller hole, then dremelled it larger (a small bit of trouble).
The landscape was built using DAS airbake clay. Once glued down (w/PVA), I built a sort of retaining wall out of plastic to serve as the back-and-side of the hill. I used angle bar to hold the pieces together, and to hold the wall to the base.
When I glued the two wall pieces together, I left a tiny overhang. That way, I could sand down the sides flush so there is no visible join at all. Plastic cement is wondrous.
I filled in the gap with a simple paper mache of glue and damp newspaper - I love paper mache, it's terrific for all kinds of things - and then further filled gaps with more DAS and premixed concrete patch from Home Depot.
Then I textured the base with sand, ballast, talus, etc. I recommended starting with the finest grain and working toward the largest last. It's no use to glue fine sand on top of ballast. The result would be awful. The pic below shows some corrugated cardboard I was going to put on the base. I painted up a piece of it (after coating with several coats of glue), but in the end felt it was too busy.
