Hello, in this short article I’ll show you how I build my base for forest golem.

First I cut shape of base in styrofoam, it’s 3 cm thick so it should be enough to make shallow river.

Next I draw simple shape of a river.

I used lighter to melt some of styrofoam and get some nice shapes.

As you can see, styrofoam melted pretty good. There are some inperfections but on this stage don’t care too much about it. Also I make higher part of base using more styrofoam.

Often I have problems with styrofoam because most of glues melting it – hot glue gun is very good at this point. No melting, fast hardening.

I add some pins during glueing to hold in place piece of styrofoam.

Next step is to make strong border. I use 1mm thick plasticard. Just draw a shape with pencil, don’t care too much about it, you can reshape it later with hobby knife.

Poxipol glue works good with styrofoam.

When you have all borders you can reshape it do desired look.

I sanded borders with sandpaper to remove all sharp curves.

Now it’s all about putty, I used wood acrylic putty with wood dust. It’s very cheap and strong. You can also use any other acrylic putty that won’t melt styrofoam.

The golem fit, so let’s go with next steps.

Firstly I used brush to apply putty but very fast I took fingers ;)

This is how does it look like when harden.

Time to add some roots. I used roots found somewhere in woods.

They have to be a bit wet, in other case will be broken when reshaping. Rots are placed on superglue.

Let’s go to the river and get some rocks and inspiration ;)

I gathered some river round rocks.

I glued it on PVA glue. I put a lot of glue to fill all gaps before pouring resin.

I draw shapes of holes I want to have in my base.

I drilled holes for easier cutting the plasticard.

I take excess of styrofoam with screwdriver

And later filled with wood putty.

Later I start again with roots and other details placed in holes. Trees and bushes are made of wire. I’ve made a tutorial some time ago, just check it out – Trees tutorial.

Ok, so bushes are done, let’s paint a bit base to prepare it for resin. I didn’t have any pictures of pouring resin in this river but also I have a tutorial how it’s made – here you have: resin water tutorial. Later I have add a bit of grass, tufts and other small greens, some insects etc.

And here is last saved picture before finishing. I have never planned to make this article and I made it from scraps found on my disk.

And here a final pictures of diorama.

Cheers!