Foam carved ruins for Bernie

An adventure in Foam Carving

Meet Bernie the Beardie! She was my buddy for close to 4 years, until she tragically caught a cold and never recovered. At this point she was strong and healthy, and she needed a private and dark place to sleep and a sunny spot to hang out during the day. Her current situation was ok, but I wanted to make something better and more customized than she had.

The Supplies

Styrofoam block, you can get them from Amazon boxes or buy them in large blocks.

Styrofoam cutter, a thin stick that can cut small things or do designs.

Styrofoam carving kit, the wire foam cutter was by far the most helpful tool I used.

Woodburning tool, this worked pretty well but can get too hot for styrofoam.

Silicone sealant and pump, available at any hardware store.

Paint, got some for $1/tube at a crafts store. Americana is cheap and works great.

    Black (x2), light grey and dark grey. Feel free to get other colors!

Tile grout, gives a nice texture to the foam.

Respirator and goggles, also a well ventilated space! Outdoors preferred. 

Work gloves for the silicone, they will be sticky and covered in silicone afterward.

The Design

I did some research on DIY reptile decorations and decided I wanted to try my hand at making something resembling the crumbling ruins of a stone structure. See the Amon Hen picture below for the kind of look I was going for. Amon Hen was the place in the Lord of The Rings (Fellowship) where Aragorn fights off the Orcs. The set always appealed to me and I thought it was a cool looking place to house a dragon. Being my first foam carving project, I decided to design something that simpler but still kept some portion of the reference.

I started the drawings in Photoshop, then moved to Maya for the 3D modeling. I worked back and forth between both applications to come up with a basic design. I then drew life size versions of the design drawings to help me cut the styrofoam correctly. These worked perfectly and gave me a reference while I cut the foam.

  
Top view on the left and a view of the long side on the right



Not the best, but it helped me figure out the shape in 3D space.

The Process

I followed this blog post almost exactly, except for the painting step. I also used hot foam carving tools rather than saws and knives. I'm not sure it made a huge difference, but I got some good detail out of it. Be careful with the styrofoam cutter, those things are easy to break and styrofoam is stronger than you think it is. I also bought a styrofoam carving kit that included a hot wire tool, that thing was awesome! It was kind of like the table saw styrofoam world in that it would tear through styrofoam but couldn't do detail or go backwards. The last tool I bought was a woodburning tool, which is basically a soldering iron with changeable heads.

  

Cut out the basic shape and hot glued the pieces together.

Bernie loves to supervise.

  

A look at the structure with the columns and cave.

  
Carving tools worked! I was able to make a cliff and semi-believable eroded rock.


Covered in tile grout and painted black all over, eventually.

I followed that with a few passes of dry brushed dark grey and light grey. 

Follow with a coat of silicone.

Success! It look likes rock! How awesome is that?

Final Thoughts

So much fun! I could have done without the green paint (added after the above picture was taken), it doesn't look much like moss. I'm not pleased with the sturdiness of the silicone and the styrofoam. It was pretty easy to peel apart and expose the chunks of styrofoam for the eating. Next time I need to spend more time melting the outside of the foam to make a hard casing and also find a more solid way to coat paint. It didn't help that the silicone wasn't applied flat, so Bernie could grab those pieces and pull.

I'm pretty impressed for how well it turned out. The foam is relatively cheap, as well as the paint, and the tools will last forever. Easily a repeatable project!