Stone walling - Kapa Line Foamboard

My preferred method for modelling stone walling is this one, the methodology comes from David Neat, whose excellent website can be found here 

Here's the method I used. I cut the board to the height I wanted the walls to be without the capping stones. Then peeled the paper backing off.

To get stone pattern right I took a ride out onto the moors taking snaps of various bits of stone wall.

I then drew out a suitable pattern in pencil on the board.

Using a pointed craft tool I then carved out the stone work. I found for smaller bits the line had to be cut with a blade before passing over with the point or the material would just rip. The board is much easier to carve than clay meaning longer periods of time could be spent on carving making this process a faster one. The properties of this board mean that by pressing in individual stones the uneven nature of drystone walling could be replicated.

In the next photos ignore the paint, this was me experimenting with the best paint method. I will explain painting later.

The two wall pieces where glued back to back with a five millimetre strip of mountboard stuck at the bottom to make the bottom wider than the top like a realtrue wall. Gate posts where made using 5mm Foamex. Cut to size and glued back to back it was roughed up using 80 grit sand paper to back to give a cut stone look. These where glued to the end of each wall section.

Capping stones where next. These where made of mount board. Lengths where cut the width of the wall and individual stones cut at various lengths from these strips. All cutting was done using a pair of tin snips as this gave a nice rough cut that better resembled stone than a perfect straight cut from a knife.

First layer was layed horizontally.

And then the rest where stacked together glued in place with UHU adhesive.

The other part to mention is corners. I had a look at how corners where in real life. And from here replicated in miniature. A mitre joint on the end of the board meant seamless transition from each side. The rock holding the capping stones was made in the same way as the gate posts.

The last step was paint. A base layer of Acrylic 'Naples Yellow' was applied. This quite nicley matches the colour of local fresh cut sand stone. Once well dryed a watered down wash of black poster paint was applied, this highlights all the nooks and cranies and defines the individual stones, as well as dulling down the yellow. A layer of matt varnish was applied to fix it in place. Next various brown and green shades of acrylic where dry brushed onto the wall until it was dulled down to colour similar to my reference pics. More greens where added to one side of most walls to highlight where moss would be growing more as the sun reached areas of wall but not others. A final layer of varnish fixed everything in place and helps protect the board from warping with damp. That brings how the walls where done to a close.