Mushrooms, Swamps and Trees - Oh My!
Our thanks to Martin Tulum for sharing this board and how he made it, we think it looks great!
The Board
I wanted to use insulation boards as the basic structure but they warped too much so I had to drill them onto woodchip boards.
I coated everything in coloured PVA glue mixed with sand and sprinkled it with dried earth, brown sand and some ground cover and later glued tufts on. I used a mixture of three shades of green flocking for moss and mossy patches.
I then sprayed everything with a mixture of PVA glue and water (50/50) to which I added some isopropyl alcohol to make it flow better.
The Giant Mushrooms
I can't seem to find where I originally saw that idea but it's pretty simple: just spray round, flat blobs of insulation foam on some baking paper and when they're dry, use a box cutter to cut them into shape. Works best if you cut from the center angled downards.
The roots I used for the stems are called Kopi cones. The outside of the caps should be treated with some mod podge or PVA glue to make them more sturdy. To be able to remove them, I glued threaded rods into the stems and bits of bamboo into the caps. (The foam is too soft on the inside for magnets to stay glued into the caps.)
The lights are just battery-powered fairy lights I put into the Kopi cones, which are hollow anyway and already come with the holes.
Other Board Elements
For those roughly half-globe shaped bluish-purple things (on the quarter of the board with the bulbous turquoise plants), I cut Mintola balls in half and airbrushed them.
The reeds on the swamp quarter are bristles from a brush and some plants from Diorama Presepe. I also used plants and moss from Diorama Presepe for the vines on the ruins etc., as well as mulberry tree strands.
The trees in the swamp are bits of a lavender plant (which died in my garden a few years ago).
The bits with all the holes filled with orange decoration gravel are lotos pods. The little orange globes on the mushroom caps are painted quinoa puffs.
