Casting Rocks

I have now covered Silver Mountain with a thin layer of Sculptamold. It took about 2/3 of a 3 lbs bag to get even coverage, but the results look pretty good. I have now moved on to adding rock castings around the base of the mountain, and will add some here and there to the mountainside as well.

I have three rock molds, two with larger rock faces, and one with smaller outcroppings. I have so far mixed five or six batches of Lightweight Hydrocal for the casts and attached the first crop of rocks to the base of the mountain. There are a few lessons:

• The process is very slow. I can get maximum of two molding batches done per night, given I work 45 minutes to an hour per night on the layout. I have ordered two more molds from Amazon and they should arrive today.
• Putting random rock castings next to each other looks more like a pile of rubble. Placing similar, and large, castings next to each other creates the illusion of actual rock formations. I have therefore started to prefer the large molds for larger surfaces, and the two new molds are both large, flat molds for this purpose. I have also started to save multiple identical castings for placing next to each other, as opposed to attaching them to the mountainside in the order they are ready.
• Using Sculptamold as "mortar" for attaching the castings works great for both plaster cloth and foam sheet surfaces, and allows me to smooth out the edges of the casting with the leftover Sculptamold too.

Here is a picture of my rock factory. I will post pics of the actual mountainside when I have more of the rock faces attached.