Well, as some of you may know I've been working on a little diorama/set-piece for my Dwarven Cannon.  The trouble is, what with the festive season and all that mallarkey, I've not touched it (the diorama) for ages, and got a bit fed up with my trusty cannoneers just kind of  lurking about on my desk.  As the home for the Dwarves is looking like it will take some time to complete, I thought I'd try my hand at something a bit more modest...

For the whole of the Christmas and New Year period I was sequestered at my mother's place down in Eastbourne, so apart from a little assisting with my son's new Tomb Kings army I got no chance to do any minifiguring myself.  What I did manage to do was wander around a few different shops though, and stocked up on a few interesting items.  In Wickes I found 2" sheets of expanded polystyrene, and in B&Q I bought a bucket of textured masonary paint.  A lucky find of a ScrewFix outlet also meant I got a monster roll of Duct Tape and a pack of 1mm drill-bits for pinning.  Result.  Although I did get some odd looks from the rest of my folks when I was in the street sawing up polystyrene to make it fit in the car around the mountain of presents the kids got...Now, expanded polystyrene sucks.  No, really, it does.  You can't cut it easily, it needs to be cut with a sharp straight knife with a sawing motion.  You can't spray it - it melts.  You can't glue it - it melts. You can't use a lamp near it - it melts.  I'll be looking for some Foamcore or similar as soon as I get back to work.

The cutting of the basic shape I solved by utilising an ancient (no kidding, it's almost pre-bakelite) electric carving knife we've had in the kitchen for years.  It's great!  A bit heavy-handed, it does consist of a pair of electricly powered 12" oscillating serated blades, but it leaves a clean cut with no bobbling of the polystyrene.  For the finer work, I use one of those snap-off-blade craft-knifes, with the blade fully extended.  Oh, but the small flakes that come off while cutting have a mental static-charge, so will stick to everything.  I suggest using a large cardboard box on it's side as a kind of carving-temple - the bits will just float off and stick to the inside of the box.

For joining bits together I just stick (arf) to PVA glue, anything more exciting just melts the shit out of it.

Well, without further ado, here it is.  A brief description of how I made it is available beneath...

A simple hill