How to Assemble FoG Models and painting guide.
The following techniques will work with most plaster building kits,
First, a word about plaster kits. Because of the casting process, most have detail on every surface except the back of the casting, which is usually the interior. Since the interior walls are usually fairly flat anyway, this is easy to overcome because you can add wallpaper, wood panelling, trim or whatever if you decide you need to detail the interior of the building.
Most plaster kits are comprised of just a few simple parts that need to be glued together, as most of the detail is cast right in place. That means you can get past the assembly pretty quickly & get right to the fun part, painting & detailing your building.
These basic instructions should work for most plaster kits & even scratch built projects you may do in the future.
This kit has just two main parts. Before gluing them together take a minute or two to clean up the edges with sand paper or wet and dry paper and make sure that you understand how they fit together.
We prefer 5 minute epoxy for assembling plaster parts. You can use white or any household glue like EVO stick or UHU glue. You could also use super glue, but since the plaster is so porous you’d need to use a lot of it.
The 5 minute epoxy gives you enough time to make sure that the parts are straight and true, but you don’t have to wait all day for it to set. Mix up a small amount of the epoxy and glue the parts together. Be careful to not use too much glue, or it could squash out & mark the surface of your model. If some oozes out wipe it off ASAP.
All FoG rock plaster models can be cut (as seen right), drilled, shaped and sanded with care, to produce your own unique diorama.
This allows for models to be 'added' together to create bigger or different models, allowing you to make a truly personalized model, you can also combine kits to create bigger and different dioramas.
While in most cases plaster buildings fit together pretty well if you feel there are any seams or joints you want to hide you can use standard lightweight household filler. Once dry you can sand it back easily.
On to the painting!
We suggest priming plaster castings before adding any colour. This will take some of the porosity out of the plaster so that when adding colours they do not soak in instantly. In other words, you’re not looking to give the castings so many coats of primer that the parts are hard, shiny and completely waterproof (like plastic), but rather, that they just don’t soak in the colours as quickly. That way you’ll have a little “work time” with your colours and will be able to move them around a bit & even “wash” them off a bit if they are too dark.
To prime the parts we simply apply 2 to 3 light coats of spray paint primer. Let this dry in between each coat.
Let primer dry completely (preferably over night) before moving on to the colour coat. We suggest painting the building before adding the doors and windows. etc
We almost always use the water based acrylic paints such as those from AK Interactive.
You might want to paint a few of the bricks darker and a few of them lighter. Simply take the basic Terra Cotta colour and mix up two small batches. Add a little white to one batch and a little black or dark brown to the other. Now, using a small brush (and a steady hand), paint a few of the bricks as shown here. You don’t need to spend too much time on this step.
Next you can add a “wash” to the entire structure using thinned down “Black” paint. We thinned the paint down approximately 75% using water. Make sure that you get the cracks, crevices and inside the door/window openings.
At this point the paint may look a little funky/blotchy. While you can’t go too wrong (after all, this is a battle damaged building) there is a simple way to make it look much more realistic and natural.
A tip is to ever so lightly “buff” the surface of the building using fine steel wool. This sort of has an effect like dry brushing, only, rather than adding paint you are taking a tiny bit off of the model. The black wash gets gently removed from the high points of the model yet it stays in the recessed detail making it look even more pronounced.
It is easy to overdo this step so just do a little bit at a time.
Next add any doors, windows, glass etc. The parts should be painted before you install them in the building. For ageing, you can then mist over a little light tan (for dust) or flat black (soot). You can also dry brush the parts a bit to add even more weathering plus we use AK Interactive weathering and pigments.
Glue the wood parts to the structure using either white glue or gap filling super glue.
These are just some basic tips for assembling and painting a ceramic/plaster kit. If you have any questions please feel free to get in touch.
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