In Progress » Dagobah Diorama » Spanish Moss and First Water Steps

Progress has been slow, but that’s probably because I’ve been putting a few steps off until I figured them out.  Now that I have it’s time to move forward to start finishing this up. First I gave the trees an additional spraying of very thin olive green then some clear gloss future to make it all look moist.

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The first part I had issues with was creating a type of “Spanish Moss” growth from the trees and vines to really give it that swamp look. Also I figured that whatever I used for the spanish moss could also be used for the “seaweed” on the X-Wing. I got a lot of suggestions from forum members at Mig anf FFF and based on those I decided on the following solution using cotton balls and fine turf.

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Basically pull some cotton from the ball and stretch/pull it into a long flat piece. Then add a few drops of whatever color cheap-acrylic paint. In this case I mixed up a pale green. Then using your finger, roll and dab the paint evenly over the cotton. A few drops will do. You want the cotton colored, but not soaked. In fact the dryer the better it’ll hold its stringy shape. Next take a few colors of fine turf from Woodland Scenics and sprinkle over it. Work in with your finger. Now just drape and shape over the branches. Secure with a drop or 2 of prepared matte medium then if that washes out some paint add a few more paint drops. Let dry and it’s done. You can pull and shape more when dry. I may still do that but overall I like the look. The spanish moss can also be applied on the roots and rocks for added “slime”. Also, here’s the completed R2-D2.

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I also started prepping for the water pour. First I airbrushed the water pools with a brown-green swampy muck color. This will be the base and given enough muck in the water may or may not show through. Better safe than sorry though. My water pours will be thin and have varying degrees of paint mixed in to color the water. The final water won’t be this green I think. I also coated the paint and anywhere I plan to pour water with a coat of Future in order to seal the paint in and protect it from the water pour leaking out.

Once cured I added the heat-stretched acrylic rod pieces that will serve to suspend the X-Wing in the air. There are 5 main support pieces, but there will be many thin drip streams in the end so the X-Wing will appear to float with water dripping from it. Once all the water is poured then a layer of leaf litter will be applied to the bare ground.

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