Pink Foam Portal - Tutorial

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Lightbender

Lightbender

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Dec 28, 2003
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Vancouver, Canada.
www.thegemdoctor.com
This is the Portal Tutorial project which is entirely the work of fellow Gauger Shaywen. She designed, built and documented the 2 Portals shown in the following pictures. This tutorial is on our web site and wasn't posted to the Gauge because she didn't think it was that useful. I guess if any one likes it or has questions I'll have to get her to show up here more often. Yes I did get permission to post the tutorial here.

Portal1.jpg


- Plan your portal opening on a piece of foam.

Portal2.jpg


- Cut out the opening with a very sharp knife.

Portal3.jpg


- Rough up surface of portal. This was done with a file. Get rid of the smooth outer layer.

Portal4.jpg


- Attach layers if needed. Hot glue works well, but don't melt the foam.

Portal5.jpg


- Carve the rocks/bricks/designs/ledges/etc.

Portal6.jpg


- Paint base/grout colour (black here). Work the paint into all the cracks so no foam shows.

Portal7.jpg


- Drybrush desired rock/brick colours. Add a sooty area at the top of the portal opening.

Portal8.jpg


- Mix green paint with fake grass bits.

Portal9.jpg


- Ivy/moss ready to apply. It'll dry hard.

Portal10.jpg


- I find it easiest to apply with fingers.

Portal11.jpg


- Time for inspection while the ivy dries.

Portal_129.sized.jpg


- Wash darker shadows around the ivy, and drybush lighter green highlights.

Portal12.jpg


- It's a new portal!

PortalInstalledMore_005.sized.jpg


- Put it on the layout and run trains through it.


(Edited to resize and compress images for faster loading)
 
She didn't think it was useful!.....Shame on her!
Great article(hint...hint).
I thought it was useful in that it was another method and an alternative to buying a comercial portal....and it looked good too.
I see the green guy with the big nose agrees with me..........
 
Yes, I agree, a worthy contender. A great tutorial. Just one comment, all her pictures are linked and are in the 500K +/- range. Even at high-speed broadband, they took a long time to download. They are sized right, just way too dense and they don't need that kind of detail to be to be viewed well on a monitor. I'm not being critical, just some advice so that others don't give up and lose the benefit of this great tutorial.
 
rocks

I got most everything except the rock carving. Were the rocks carved with an xacto knife? Or just by making depressions outlining them? It did take me a third look to realize the bricks surrounding the portal were a seperate layer. But that's OK. It takes 3 meals before I realize I've eaten. I guess I'm just slow. :D

Lynn
 
Lightbender said:
Hopefully the pictures will arrive faster now as I have compressed and resized them.

I'll get Shaywen to reply to questions.
Click to expand...
Yep, much better. In some cases you reduced the file size to just 10% of the original and still there is little difference in the visual quality on screen.

Although you can link just about any size picture, it's best to stay within the limits of posting, especially for those that do not have broadband.

Thanks for doing that.:thumb:
 
Thanks for all your kind words about my tutorial. :D

Lynn, the rocks were carved with a jewellers file, which seemed to work better than anything else I tried. The bricks surrounding the portal were a seperate layer because I decided afterwards that I needed more relief than I'd planned for. After caulking with hot glue and painting, the seams are invisible.

shaywen
 
This thread was moved to The Academy 09 Nov 2005. Some posts may have been edited for clarity.

The thread is now locked. If you have any questions about the information presented here, please post them in General Talk with a link to this thread.

Andrew
Co-moderator of The Academy
 
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