I Made a Rock
Uther's last stand.
A way-simple terrain bit. Take an ubiquitous AOL cd, some styrofoam, some flock, and your black and grey paints. Glue, cut, glue, paint, and sprinkle. Here's how.
Prep the base: Take your CD and spray paint it black. Let it dry and paint again. (The paint will crack when the first coat dries. The second coat should fully cover it.)
Prep the rock: Get a few bits of styrofoam and glue them together. I used four pieces about six inches by three inches by 3/4 inches. Using a hot-wire cutter, start chopping basic shapes into the block. You'll get all the nooks and crannies in the next step.
Using ventilation: Whenever using a hot-wire cutter or anything that melts through styrofoam, do it outside during a windstorm. If that's not possible, have several fans blowing away from you to get the toxic fumes away. I do my cutting indoors, but I usually have the fans on, the windows and doors open and the oven hood going full-blast.
Nooks and crannies: Heat a knife that you will never touch to food again ever. Use the hot blade to dab into the styrofoam rock. After a few seconds, re-heat the knife and re-dab. If the knife starts to cool, the melted styrofoam will start to stick to the blade.
Paint: Lightly spray your sculpted rock with black spray paint. LIGHTLY. The spray paint will eat away at the styrofoam and give it a little bit of texture. Not sure how much is too much? Use a scrap piece first.
Keep painting: Paint the entire rock black. When dry, not-so-drybrush a dark grey onto the rock. Keep drybrushing lighter shades of grey onto the rock.
Basing: Coat the black CD with glue. Glue the rock to the base and cover the exposed cd with flock. The tree bit came from a wicker broom purchased at the craft store. You can use these for reeds in water as well.
Finish: Use a sealer to keep the flock in place.