Building a case wall out of stryofoam - my small scale test

[ErikTande]

*EDIT* Can a mod change the title to "stone" wall? Apparently I forgot how to type.



I'm doing a Game of Thrones Parody soon, and I need to have some castle interiors so I decided to try a test panel today, it turned out pretty well! I wanted to make sure I had the process down before trying to do 3 large 8'x4' panels.




I used this tutorial as a base from Transylvania TV:

 

[Egg Born Son]

Looking good. Did you prime it before painting or is that spray paint safe on polysterene? What solvent base is it?

 

[ErikTande]

Looking good. Did you prime it before painting or is that spray paint safe on polysterene? What solvent base is it?

I didn't use a primer. The paint is a water based spray paint, so there are no solvents in it.

That's a good point to bring up though for anyone else reading this thread, DO NOT USE REGULAR SPRAY PAINT! It will dissolve the styrofoam and you'll have nothing left! I bought this stuff at a craft store (Michaels).

Also, if you check out those videos, they talk about using acetone (found in spray paint) to intentionally pit the styrofoam to make it look more rough.

 

[Egg Born Son]

Yeah, I've used regular spraypaint to achieve the acetone effect deliberately (as I discovered after the first non-deliberate time that ruined an hours work) and then handpainted the finish with a brush. The other trick I did once when I didn't have primer and only spraypaint was to paint with PVA glue on the foam as a barrier, then you can spray paint over that. The PVA as primer takes forever though, the actual painting as well as the drying time. The finished effect is a little slicker like polished roughcut stone.

Your lounge looks a mess! I did mine in the garden a year ago. I'm still finding foam in the hopper after mowing the backyard.

Looking forward to seeing your complete sets.

 

[Seth Rice]

Styrofoam is awesome for stuff like this - one technique you can try if you're looking for a really 'real' texture, is covering the foam with a light layer of drywall mud... works really well - it looks exactly like rock. ~one of many things I picked up in my 3 months doing art on a feature last fall~

 

[danjenkins]

Seth is right, mudding the foam looks fantastic. You can also add some sand to the mud to change the quality of the rock. Mudding also gives you the option to add some various types of distressing or erosion. If you wait for the mud to set a little bit you can then go over it with a wet rag and give it a smoother look, like water erosion. Or you can go at the mud with a wire brush or stipple it with a chip brush to add some nice fine details.

If you need to build a piece that can take some punishment that will be handled by actors, stepped on, sat on or whatever you can hard coat the sculpted foam. There are a number of products out there for this but Rosco makes a great product called Foamcoat. It drys rock hard and can be painted, sanded, drilled, otherwise worked with once it's cured. Great stuff. I've used it on many sets (mostly theatre sets which need to last 6-8 weeks of constant use) and I love the stuff.