This started out as groundworks for a vehicle project that turned out to be slightly too small and then took on a life of its own.
My inspiration was taken from images of the terrain around the Brenner pass in northern Italy during the German army’s retreat north through the mountains. Looking at photographs of the kind of materials that were used to build these roads I found a contemporary pic of a cycle race over the same terrain. I liked the idea of the tight bend and added height element that it would bring to a display.
To begin construction, I started off with a picture frame and cut out some rectangular Styrofoam blocks. I then added angled pieces to build up and simulate the gradients and basic contours to the desired height. Once I was happy with the various layered blocks of Styrofoam shapes that built up the general contours of the terrain, I glued them together with PVA and held them in place with thin wooden dowels and cocktail sticks.
The image below shows how I originally started carving the stone wall into the side of the upper slope, but I soon realised it would be far simpler to sculpt the pattern onto a thin piece of Styrofoam on a flat surface and then attach it.
Once the PVA was dry I used various sharp tools to cut into and shape out more detailed contours of the slopes. I then fashioned a portion of the upper slope to simulate how running water had collapsed a section of the retaining stone wall. Many of the random sized pieces cut out were used to portray a few rocks that had tumbled down the mountainside. These were also glued in place with PVA.
To get the final slope terrain level and the road surface layer I used Sculptamold.
At first, I attempted to use small stones to build the lower retaining wall, but I wasn’t satisfied with their scale appearance, so resorted to using the same method as I had with the upper wall and sculpted the stone pattern onto a thin sheet of Styrofoam.
Styrofoam was used again to add the coping stones to the tops of the wall and damage was inflicted in various areas to depict the decay and damage they would have suffered over harsh winters.
I didn’t want to portray a pristine road surface as period images showed they were often rough and pretty beat up. Although many of the main routes had metalled surfaces many were in a poor condition. I used Sculptamold for this and whilst the surface was still wet various small stones were added. I also used a small jug of water and gently poured it onto the upper slope, so it ran down the road leaving small channels to develop in the wet Sculptamold.
Unfortunately, I lost quite a few pics of the final steps of construction, so the next images were taken after I had sealed any exposed Styrofoam areas with PVA, added some scenic grass, and started applying some acrylic base coat layers.
I started off by laying down a dark grey primer colour over the entire surface. This was followed by lighter greys over the walls and road surfaces. Making up a palette of greys and grey brown acrylics and using some Italian wall images for reference I then started picking out individual stones.
I then airbrushed the grassy slope areas with a few shades of dark green acrylics to establish a good base tone layer for the vegitation.
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