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Landscaping with Foam Putty

Trying to make hills and rocks by putting Woodland Scenics Foam Putty into their Rock Molds has not worked well for me.  They Putty takes a long time to dry if the mold is large, the Putty tends to stick into the nooks and crannies of the mold instead of coming out cleanly, and it tends to be brittle when dry.

Applying large or small daubs of Foam Putty with a table knife or finger for a spatula seems to work pretty well if you want jagged or angular features.  The Putty is rather sticky and tends to adhere to the knife or your finger so it is difficult to create smooth, rounded contours.  For a rock face or mountain, this is all right, but for rolling hills or gentle features in the landscape it doesn't work.

I was able to create gentle, rolling features by wetting the partially formed features with a little "wetter" Scenic Cement (containing some dishwashing liquid as described under Snow.) The steps are as follows:

Here's where we start - flat, bare styrofoam.
flat, bare styrofoam
Next, place daubs of Foam Putty in the size and amount needed to create the contours desired.
daubs of Foam Putty
Spread and shape the Foam Putty as desired. I thought the spoon might give a smoother surface than a knife or my finger because of its rounded shape (it didn't).
molding Putty
Dipping the spoon into "wetter" Scenic Cement was initially done in an attempt to keep the Putty from sticking so much to the spoon. It was a serendipitous result that the Cement wet the Foam Putty so well that the surface tended to round off nicely.Smooth and wet

Dipping out a little of the "wetter" Scenic Cement in the bowl of the spoon, instead of just getting the spoon wet, allowed enough Cement to mix in with the surface of the Putty to not only let it smooth out nicely, it got it wet enough that ground cover could be sprinkled on and glued to the surface.  In this case, snow was used, but some sort of turf could have been used instead.
covered landscape

I haven't tried it, but much larger hills could probably be formed with this technique.