Blue Cavern

No the weather is fine for all the paper, card and smurfs etc its just the homemade clay the damp gets two just the slightest bit of moister and they flop. I still havent found a cheaper beter solution for that yet.

The ground is polostireen and daz modeling clay and thats fine. My castle is made from wall paster and daz and thats been down in a damp garage for a couple of years and has held up fine. apart from it getting boke were things were moved around in there but ive got that back now fixed it up re painted it and its all better.

Funny you mention wallace and gromit years ago I built the wallaces house garden basment and the rocket and all the characters too and even animated them. Took me a couple of years building everything. I even used to make my own characters based on wallace and gromit and used to sell them. But that was years ago and when my parents cleared out there loft it all got frown away. Oh id love to work for Ardman on the wallace and gromit stuff and yes my own smurf design studio would be super lol.

Smurfy regards
Steve

Hi Steve

Well good luck in finding a sollution for the problem.
Your smurfs and village with the forrest looks really great.

If you are going for it, good luck with finding a job with the Wallace and Gromit guys ........
To bad you don't have that town anymore, i would have loved to see that !!!!!

Tintin

It looks wonderful Steve! Do you work with children's books or anything like that? Seems like that should be the line of work for you!!

Thanks, No dont do any work for anything. I have always wanted to do art works models etc for a job but no matter how ive tryed in the past nothing ever comes of it so i gave up trying.

Here is a little update i have started to build the smurfs river bank....





Smurfy regards
Steve

My husband does taxidermy and to make the head for a fish he uses a mixture of fiberglass resin and bondo. Maybe you could use something like that so your buildings wouldn't collapse from the moisture?

The trouble is i like to use clay as its the easyest thing to sculpt from, pluss it seems no matter what i could use its going to cost a fortune for the amount I will need. I just cant seen to find a suplier of a good reasonable clay that is quite cheap and sell in bulk.

Smurfy regards
Steve

Hmmmm.......I wonder if you could spray the clay that you use now with some sort of acrylic sealer after they are painted? It comes in a can like spray paint but it's clear. They make some stuff to seal terra cotta flower pots that comes in a spray can also. It's not too expensive, around $5 a can.

never herd of it?? I completly sprayed them with a good coat of varnish inside and out and that didnt do the trick.

Smurfy regards
Steve

Your Village looks like it will be a little master showcase

If you are not against having strangers over, you could try to get some media (newspapers, TV and so on) over to take pictures for it and advertise it. Even so early on it's easy to see that it would deserve any publicity it can get

The stuff to seal the terra cotta flower pots comes in a can like spray paint. It's in the paint department at Walmart but if you didn't have any luck with the varnish the flower pot sealer might not work either. Hopefully you can find an economical answer to the problem!

Your village is coming out fantastic!

yeah i dont know what will and wont work i think it will just have to be trial and error and see what happens unless anyone else has any other ideas on what I could use to seal it or use to build them with thats cost efective.

Smurfy regards
Steve

I've been working in smurfland again today! Here are some updated pictures of my smurf forest still a long way to go with filling in the plants in the forest background but getting there slowly. ive now done some more of the ground and river and have added the froggies to the lillys etc






Smurfy regards
Steve

Looking fantastic, Steve

How is it all holding up to the dampness in your loft? Would be horrible if anything were to happen to the village/woods

all the paper and card is fine along with the paper machee stuff it just seems to be the clay that dosnt like it.
I still havent found a solution to that problem yet. Well a cheap enough solution any ways.

Smurfy regards
Steve

It looks wonderful!

Well here is my next creation for the forest......

Well Here he is feathers with a smurf riding on his back flying over the clearing in the forest!!





A few updated forest pics with added bushes trees etc too...









Smurfy regards
Steve

Hi Steve

Your best work ever............ this is a great one !!!!
Congratulations .........perfectly done

Tintin

I am speechless, Steve....

It looks fantastic...and I love Feathers flying over the woods.

Very nice indeed
Well done
Wandy

I agree! It looks fantastic

Lia