Temperate Modular Scenery, River Sections

Hello There! With the majority of the modular terrain nearing completion I have started the last tiles which are the river sections.

I have already made the frames to fit the styrene into. I had calculated the width of the river and cut that size centrally into the frames. Next I marked out the edge of the watercourse along the tile. I used a router to remove the styrene, (which was a very messy job, so I covered everything in dust sheets to make it easy to clean up. I then started to apply the tile adhesive to round off the edges of the river.

Here is the depth of the river. It has to be deep enough to allow a thin layer of tile adhesive, some fine stones, a thin layer of resin, (coloured brown), and a layer of blur green resin. I opted for a depth of about two centimetres.

I realised that instead of using a scarper to apply the tile adhesive that it would be a lot easier to just use my hands so wore some protective gloves to stop getting the adhesive all over my hands. I took the opportunity to fill in the edges of the styrene and the wooden frame by pushing the adhesive down the gaps.

I you were ever one of those children that liked to do finger painting at school then this is the job for you! I used water to make the finish more smooth and frequently wet the gloves to stop the adhesive sticking to the gloves.

Here the river bed has been covered. I did not cover the river banks or any further as then I would have added grit and sand and I did not want that on the river bed at this point. The vacuum cleaner at the side explains the 'mess' described earlier!

On one of the 600mm x 600mm tiles I made a slow river bend. I decided to build up the inner curve of the bend with more adhesive to make it more realistic. I used a paint brush, soaked with water to smooth the surface off.

As some of the tile adhesive is quite thick this may take a while to set. This is fine as I have a number of other projects on the go at the moment.