Imperial Ruins Project - III. PVA glue texturing

The next step in getting my CNC Imperial Ruins to a table-top standard was to texture it. Barring some fancy painting scheme, most average painters will need to do this step to make it look good as the MDF kit is pretty featureless on every surface. Hence, I feel this is a 100% necessary step in the process.

To texture my ruins, I used only three ingredients:
(a) PVA Glue;
(b) Water;
(c) Grit.

For the latter, any small or fine type of sand will suffice. I don't think that you'd want to have coarser texturing, but that might also be an option if you wanted a unique looking building. Mix the PVA glue with water to create a diluted glue (about 3 parts glue to 1 part water). To the above mixture, add a generous helping of the fine grit. Depending on the type of finish you're going for, you might like to add more or less grit to the mixture.

Using an old, large paint brush, I then applied my mixture to the surfaces of the Imperial Ruins. Some parts of the ruins got some more grit than other parts in the process as the grit has a tendency to sink to the bottom of whatever container you're mixing them together in. But this isn't a bad thing as most buildings don't have exactly even textures across their length.

It is worth mentioning at this point that my model was not glued together before I did this "painting". Although the parts hold together reasonably well without gluing, the application of the texturing layer will firm up the shape and sturdiness of the scenery.

Various problems may occur at this point, including sticking to the newspaper surface that you're gluing on (the glue can be a little runny!) and figuring out how to paint the underside of the ceilings. You may need a paint brush with a short handle for the latter!

The picture (above) shows the ruins once they've had time to dry off. The grit can be seen scattered across the surface. Perhaps it is not quite as even as I would have liked, but I think it is a good finish. In the next part of this series, I will look at the painting stage of the scenery.