Making A Terrain Centerpiece - Lava

This is how I made a really hot looking piece to serve as the centerpiece for my lava themed table.

Here are the raw materials (mdf, pink insulation foam, small marbles, paper clay, sprues, small gravel, PVA glue, and creativity):


SANY0149 by Doug Crabb, on Flickr

Here's how to turn that pile of stuff into a thrilling piece of terrain:

1 First thing you need to do is sand down the edges of the ...

This is how I made a really hot looking piece to serve as the centerpiece for my lava themed table.

Here are the raw materials (mdf, pink insulation foam, small marbles, paper clay, sprues, small gravel, PVA glue, and creativity):


SANY0149 by Doug Crabb, on Flickr

Here's how to turn that pile of stuff into a thrilling piece of terrain:

1 First thing you need to do is sand down the edges of the base.
2. Next, take the pink insulation foam and using a hot wire cutter remove all the pink foam that doesn't look like a rock/lava formation. Cut at different angles to make a multi faceted surface. Also make sure you cut it so that lower layers are bigger than higher ones so you have steps to put figures on.
Notice I cut two gulleys for the lava to flow out of the rock. Be creative, let your inner rock monster out (I said your INNER one)!

Side view


SANY0152 by Doug Crabb, on Flickr

Back View:


SANY0153 by Doug Crabb, on Flickr
Front View (without bridge)


SANY0150 by Doug Crabb, on Flickr

3. Now use PVA glue to glue the layers of rock together and then glue them to the base, (to make painting easier, DO NOT glue the rock bridge until everything is painted). After this is dry add the lava. I used a product called Paperclay in the US. It air drys and doesn't need to be put in the oven which is not good for foam. It does shrink a little when it dries so be sure to account for that.

Here is the lava. Notice that I added debris (chopped up pieces of sprue and small gravel) to the outer edges of the flow like a real lava flow would pick up as it moves along. Try adding some small marbles to act as bubbles. Make the lava spilling over look like real flows by rolling the clay into different size snakes and adding them in the cuts in the foam.


SANY0156 by Doug Crabb, on Flickr

4 After letting the clay dry overnight base paint all the rock and the base black. Then paint all the lava a dark red. (I know the lava is not red in this picture, I got excited about how cool this was looking and forgot to take a pic of that)


SANY0157 by Doug Crabb, on Flickr

Now using increasingly lighter shade of grey lightly dry brush the black rocks to bring out the rocky appearance of the cut foam.

Now fade into the middle from the edges the various colors of the lava from dark red to orange then yellow and finally white for the hot spots. Paint the bubbles with 1 part white paint, 2 parts PVA glue and 2 parts water. This gives them a translucent quality when it dries. Also dry brush some of the lava colors on the rocks to make it look like the light from the hot lava was reflecting off the rock. Do darker colors closer to the lava and lighter ones further away. Remember to dry brush lava colors on the under side of the bridge. Now glue the bridge in place or leave it free if you like.

Finished product


SANY0161 by Doug Crabb, on Flickr


SANY0163 by Doug Crabb, on Flickr


SANY0165 by Doug Crabb, on Flickr