So we left last time with the wall being built up to a thickness of three. This concept being a science fiction piece, there will be floating stones about the door structure. A couple of pics deciding on size , balance and position of said stones. After that, it’s time to dress the face of the doorway placing details. This was done with thinner foam blocks around the doorway and foam board. The foam board has had the outer paper stripped off. You can see it being used for large flat surfaces of the wall portions. I did this to expose some of the underlying foam and roughen the remaining paper surface so the wood filler wood have a something better to grip onto.

First layer application of wood putty is fairly thin and is simply meant to bind everything together. It laid down quite simply with little overworking and left to dry. The next session, I applied a much thicker layer over the surface. Now I have enough depth to carve out underlying structures of bricks and stones and get after chipping the exterior masonry. This process is very give and take as too much can suddenly pop off from to vigorous an approach. A mix of pva and wood putty is the usual fix for broken parts or additions at this stage. This makes for a for quite a strong bond. This however requires another good 8 hours of drying before I can star to rework the area. You could start sooner but it is just better to make sure it is rock solid before starting again. Impatience doesn’t help this process whatsoever.

Generally, things go smoothly and I allow what is working out at the time to direct my energies. Basically, if it looks good then it works for me. The carving work is done mostly with water and number 15 scalpel blades and I go through a few of them.