Daves Tugboat Diorama

I wrapped the boats in clear plastic food wrap and put them in position in the holes. I had to shim them with blocks of foam to get them in the position that I wanted. With the boats in position I poured in plaster around the hauls. I wanted to have a solid base for the tugs and be able to seal them in so the holes wouldn’t fill with water.




I’d been trying different ways to make roads. Spreading plaster and painting it is a lot of trouble. It looks ok, but it never exactly right. I used masking tape to mark the edges of the road and built up about 5 layers of tape. I mixed up a batch of plaster that was a bit on the thin side then added black acrylic craft paint until the color was very black. Then I dumped in a bunch of Tallas. I spread the mix with a putty knife then rolled it out with a brayer.




It dries in shades of black and dark gray and looks like old blacktop. The best thing is it’s black all the way through so there is no worries about chips in it showing up white.