# Different Way Of Making Rock Background!



## Willz0r2010 (Oct 6, 2010)

Being a perfectionist, whenever I see threads on here that are "rock backgrounds" made from polystyrene, grout and painted/drybrushed I can't help thinking that they all look pretty similar - and not a huge amount like rock :lol2:

I needed to find a way to make a rock wall background for my Agama Mwanzae colony which would be fairly lightweight, take up an entire wall and look as much like actual rock as possible. Having scoured the internet and natural rock walls for inspiration I started to get a good idea of what I wanted.

My plan was to build a Space Foam shell to give the basic shape and carve tunnels and hides inside it, so that the lizards could enjoy more natural behaviour such as clinging to the rock surface, and running through tunnels to get to their hides, and peek out for food and so on. This is what I ended up with:



















This is the view of the inside, looking at the flat face that would eventually go against the back of the viv. You can see the upper and lower hides, with the tunnels going off in different directions for access.










The insides of the hides were grouted to protect the polystyrene.

I then wanted to place a veneer of some sort over the polystyrene that looked like natural rock faces, instead of slapping grout over the whole lot and drybrushing it, which never really looks like a cliff face much.

I ended up deciding that the veneer should be made from plaster of paris. It's fairly lightweight, easy to mould into various shapes and easy to stain to get the right colour. I bought some bags of Plaster and mixed into a thick cream consistency - it would set in about 20 mins, and be workable for about 10. 

To get the plaster looking like cracked, broken rock I spread a huge piece of crumpled up tin foil over the polystyrene background, and poured the plaster into it.

Once the plaster had set completely, it was tipped upside down very carefully, and the foil was peeled away. The plaster was then smacked in a few places, so it would break up realistically, and smaller pieces were removed to leave gaps and cracks, and big flat pieces were broken a few more times to avoid having large flat areas.

The pieces were then rearranged back on top of the background.



















This shows the amount of detail the tin foil leaves without really any hard work or hand carving



















These pieces were then all attached using expanding foam as an adhesive.

The reason for using the foam was so that as it expanded underneath the plaster, not only would it form a really strong bond with maximum surface area, but it would also lift the pieces in a random way, to give an even more natural, realistic appearance. The gaps left as it lifted would be perfect cracks and grips for the lizards as they climb over it.










I now had to paint it - instead of painting it dark first, then applying various lighter shades of drybrush which usually ends up looking exactly like somebody's drybrushed something, I applied stains in various colours starting with a light slate, adding burnt sienna and raw umber in patches to add some light brown shades and eventually washing everything with heavily diluted pure black, to bring all the colours together and bring out as much detail from the plaster's texture as possible.





































Here you can see the polystyrene shell behind the veneer of plaster



















The front two layers of polystyrene are connected together, but separate from the rest of the background. They will be attached via magnets to the main piece, so that there is a removable front which allows easy and quick access to the hides and tunnels if needed.

The next stage which will have to wait until tomorrow will be adding gravel, sand, moss and dirt into all of the cracks between each plaster face, filling up the empty gaps of polystyrene with sand and gravel, attaching brush bristles and polyfibre grass strands to simulate growth and vegetation, applying a couple more colour washes to bring the really deep cracks out, adding magnets for the front and eventually spraying the entire thing with a matt polyurethane spray sealant like the type used to seal guitars. It'll be bulletproof and maybe even lizard-claw proof!


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## Marti3P (Sep 5, 2010)

Wow, you really went all out! Looks great can't wait for the finished product.

:2thumb:

Phil


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## salanky (Oct 28, 2009)

that looks great, really wish i had an artistic bone in my body so i could do something like this for my new desert iggy viv :bash:

cant wait to see the next steps :2thumb:


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## Paul112 (Apr 6, 2007)

I agree about the fake rock backgrounds all looking quite similar. I've been thinking about trying something similar to yours, but using real rock (such as slate tiles) as the veneer.

Good luck with it, looking forward to progress!

Best,
Paul


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## Willz0r2010 (Oct 6, 2010)

Marti3P said:


> Wow, you really went all out! Looks great can't wait for the finished product.
> 
> :2thumb:
> 
> Phil


Cheers! Can't wait to get on with the rest of it!



salanky said:


> that looks great, really wish i had an artistic bone in my body so i could do something like this for my new desert iggy viv :bash:
> 
> cant wait to see the next steps :2thumb:


Cheers! Go for it, it's easier than it looks!



Paul112 said:


> I agree about the fake rock backgrounds all looking quite similar. I've been thinking about trying something similar to yours, but using real rock (such as slate tiles) as the veneer.
> 
> Good luck with it, looking forward to progress!
> 
> ...


Yeah my first thought was slate as well. The trouble is that slate tiles are uniform so you lose that "natural rock" appearance (although I suppose you could smash them and put them back together to create crevices) and they're pretty heavy when you've got enough of them to cover the back wall of a 4 foot viv!


I originally wanted the cliff face to look like slate anyway, but doing some Googling I ended up finding that Agamas are more often found clinging to broken walls of a different type of rock.


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## Ron Magpie (Oct 11, 2009)

I'm usually very dismissive of 'fake rock' backgrounds, because like you, I usually find them plastic-looking and naff. This is really good, though! :2thumb:


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## Willz0r2010 (Oct 6, 2010)

Couple more pics as an update, showing details of the dirt, stones and moss added to the background, plus the colour washes are complete and ready to spray.


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## ronnyjodes (Apr 29, 2011)

Holy crap, that looks awesome! Kudos sir! :notworthy:


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## Willz0r2010 (Oct 6, 2010)

ronnyjodes said:


> Holy crap, that looks awesome! Kudos sir! :notworthy:


Ah cheers mate!


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## salanky (Oct 28, 2009)

that looks great, how do you get access to the tunnels though?


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## Lutra Garouille (Sep 22, 2011)

Thats fab


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## Willz0r2010 (Oct 6, 2010)

salanky said:


> that looks great, how do you get access to the tunnels though?


Cheers! The whole front is removable and will be held on with magnets embedded into the polystyrene. If needs be, the front panel can be lifted away, exposing the hides and tunnels for access.


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## salanky (Oct 28, 2009)

Willz0r2010 said:


> Cheers! The whole front is removable and will be held on with magnets embedded into the polystyrene. If needs be, the front panel can be lifted away, exposing the hides and tunnels for access.


ah now I get it, have you put anything in the tunnels to stop claws tearing them apart or do you think they would be ok? this is deffo something id try and looks far easier than any others iv seen plus I think it looks better as an end result too. big well done to you :2thumb::no1:


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## Willz0r2010 (Oct 6, 2010)

salanky said:


> ah now I get it, have you put anything in the tunnels to stop claws tearing them apart or do you think they would be ok? this is deffo something id try and looks far easier than any others iv seen plus I think it looks better as an end result too. big well done to you :2thumb::no1:


Thanks so much! The inside of the tunnels are coated in three layers of grout - not the light, smooth stuff, but the really dark stuff that dries like concrete. It's basically bomb proof!


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## salanky (Oct 28, 2009)

Willz0r2010 said:


> Thanks so much! The inside of the tunnels are coated in three layers of grout - not the light, smooth stuff, but the really dark stuff that dries like concrete. It's basically bomb proof!


so robbing your ideas :whistling2::notworthy:


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## Willz0r2010 (Oct 6, 2010)

Right. Update time at last. 

I've been gradually building up a protective plastic coat over the whole background using Plasti-Kote Acrylic Spray. It's basically varnish in an aerosol can, but as you build up the layers it creates a really strong clear layer which doesn't affect the moss or small stones and dirt that I added. Varnish from a tin using a paintbrush tends to dislodge everything and you lose the nice natural randomness.

The whole thing was then cut down to the right size for the viv, and slid into place. The wiring was done (while almost killing myself, because I forgot to turn off the mains at one point and cut across a live cable with wire cutters. Thank god they had rubber handles. Blew a big black hole in the wire cutters though, and blew a fuse inside the dimming stat, which meant a trip to Maplin for a really awkward 8A quickblow) and the ceramic and UV lights were added.

As with all my other vivs, I'm using the Forttex ATC-120 dimming stat, and I've chopped all the cables right down so that they're neat and tidy. 










It's at 113F purely because I'm still airing out the background to remove the spray fumes.

Anyway, pics!














































All that needs doing now is fixing the front panel on, so it can be removed when needed but won't fall off and smash the glass doors, packing the sides and top with strips of poly, or expanding foam - haven't decided yet, and adding substrate. Think I'm gonna use a mixture of rocks, stones, mud and sand gasp: they're gonna eat it all and diieeeeeeee) to get as close to a genuine African Kopje as I can.

Getting there!!


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## LovLight (Apr 14, 2012)

Looking amazing! 
Love the magnet idea to get access, its great to see there is a way to make use of all that vertical space other than just rock ledges. What is the spray varnish you have used called? 

Sent from my U8180 using Tapatalk 2


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## Willz0r2010 (Oct 6, 2010)

LovLight said:


> Looking amazing!
> Love the magnet idea to get access, its great to see there is a way to make use of all that vertical space other than just rock ledges. What is the spray varnish you have used called?
> 
> Sent from my U8180 using Tapatalk 2


Yeah the agamas love jumping and climbing so I figured might as well the whole 2ft space, as in the wild they spend a lot of time clinging onto rock faces and stuff!

This is the spray I used

Plasti-kote 1140 400ml Super Clear Acrylic Matt: Amazon.co.uk: DIY & Tools

It's pretty stinky stuff but it dries bullet proof. The main flat parts of the background have about 4 - 5 coats of it, and you can't even scratch it with a key, it's so tough.


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## LovLight (Apr 14, 2012)

Sounds great! Thanks for the link, I think I may order a can as I'm making a machu picchu background for one of my leos and I've got some moss carpet that I'm inlaying which I had no idea how to varnish, this sounds perfect! 

Sent from my U8180 using Tapatalk 2


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## Adam Birchall (Nov 6, 2011)

How did you get the moss and dirt to stick into the gaps?


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## Willz0r2010 (Oct 6, 2010)

Adam Birchall said:


> How did you get the moss and dirt to stick into the gaps?


I used a combination of a few things - I tried No More Nails first, but it didn't really stick very well, and obviously there were white gaps when the non-stuck stuff brushed off. For my other full-viv build I used brown silicone which was much better, but still took a LONG time to set.

The best thing I found was using grout actually. I use the really dark floor tile adhesive & grout all-in-one stuff, and pushed a bit into the cracks then pushed dirt, stones and moss into it. It dries rock solid and is almost impossible to pull or brush the loose stuff away from it.


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## Willz0r2010 (Oct 6, 2010)

Update time!! It's finally finished!

The substrate is a mix of red sand, dried mud from the garden and numerous rocks and stones. The lizards living in it (a colony of Agama Mwanzae) were so stressed from the move that it's sort of impossible to get any decent pictures of them enjoying it, but I'll add a picture of them at the end from their old enclosure anyway!


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## LovLight (Apr 14, 2012)

Looks brilliant! I'm sure they'll all go exploring and love their new home once they get over the initial upheaval 

Sent from my U8180 using Tapatalk 2


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## dinostore (Feb 23, 2011)

Willz0r2010 said:


> Being a perfectionist, whenever I see threads on here that are "rock backgrounds" made from polystyrene, grout and painted/drybrushed I can't help thinking that they all look pretty similar - and not a huge amount like rock :lol2:


awesome attempt and i would be over the moon with that myself but tbh honest i think yours looks like a stone wall from a castle and not much like rock too


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## gilbery007 (Apr 24, 2009)

Nice to see someone trying something different rather than copying all the other fake rock builds. Well done you!


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## Willz0r2010 (Oct 6, 2010)

dinostore said:


> awesome attempt and i would be over the moon with that myself but tbh honest i think yours looks like a stone wall from a castle and not much like rock too


I know what you mean! The photos from my phone camera make the greys look much....greyer. In real life, with the UV light above it the face looks far more textured. Those big vertical lines where I had to break the plaster and put it back together again don't help either - they make it look quite man-made rather than natural. In my next one I'll be getting rid of the polystyrene frame completely, and with one flat piece of plaster it should (hopefully) look far more natural!



gilbery007 said:


> Nice to see someone trying something different rather than copying all the other fake rock builds. Well done you!


Cheers!


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## yellrat (Jun 13, 2008)

dinostore said:


> awesome attempt and i would be over the moon with that myself but tbh honest i think yours looks like a stone wall from a castle and not much like rock too


Agree it looks good but more like a wall rather than natural rock reminded me a bit of castle grey skull from he man :2thumb:.


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