Thanks for all the great feedback, comments, and compliments!  It really helps to keep the momentum and not lose focus on a large project like this.  I wish I had done this years ago and maybe this thing would have been done long ago!  

Here is the progress that was made over the last week.

The balsa floor was indeed installed:


Closeup:


The second picture has the contrast turned up a bit, but it helps to show a little problem I've noticed during the staining process.  There seem to be light colored 'streaks' which have formed in the balsa.  I'm using a different wood stain now since my favorite wood stain from Liquitex has apparently been discontinued.  These little streaks are little grooves in the wood itself which seem to repel stain and even washes.  Although the problem isn't extreme when viewed at normal contrast and from a distance, it is still a bit annoying and I'd like to figure out the cause and solution... 

All of the exterior and some of the interior foam board walls for the 2nd and 3rd floors have been glued and spackled. 

Not much to look at yet since they haven't been painted and the texture is not obvious, but progress none-the-less.  Here is a link to my half-baked tutorial on half-timber walls just to give an idea of the process I use in case anyone is interested:  Half Timber Buildings Tutorial

I did do some more casting, but I still don't think I have enough roof tiles to cover everything.  I've really only been doing one casting a night so the progress on the roof front has been a bit slow.

Most of my time was spent on something I didn't expect to spend it on.  I remembered that doing the base was going to be fairly messy and wanted to get it done (well, at least the messy parts) before going much further with finishing the upper stories.  The initial plan was to cover it in spackling compound, let it dry, and carve it with a wire brush like in W. Ambrose "TheBugKing" Coddington's Broken Coast Tutorial.  I did some tests and have had the base covered with one layer of spackle for quite awhile (giving it the wonderful layer cake look you can see in some of the previous postings).  The tests showed that the spackle is too easily broken and leaves really noticeable white chips when it does.  This is especially a problem in this model because the spackle is set all around the edge where it gets handled and bumped. Anyway, I decided to substitute Sculptamold for the second layer of spackle which dries to a much more durable shell.  Plus it can be colored much more easily by just adding some acrylic paint to the water being mixed with the Sculptamold. 

Here is a sequence of  some quick shots from my phone of the base as it was constructed.
Colored Sculptamold carved with wire brush:


Basecoated:


Drybrushed and Washed with several shades:


Here are a few more shots from different angles and lighting (no post-processing other than cropping and scaling):





Here are a few shots of the path leading up the plateau:






The large well will be host to a covered wooden well platform complete with winching mechanism. 
So far I'm fairly pleased as to how the base is turning out.  Adding greenery will certainly make it look better, but that will probably be one of the last steps that gets done.  Substituting Sculptamold was a great success as the shell is extremely hard and difficult to chip.  Plus, since it is colored gray, the chips don't show up nearly as much as the blinding white that the spackle would have provided.  The only downside to the harder material is that it was a real workout with the wire brush to get it carved...but perhaps that is an upside...a little workout isn't a bad thing.  

Painting and finishing up the half-timber portions of the 2nd and 3rd levels are next on the agenda.  Hopefully some progress will happen on the 4th level floor & walls as well.  I'll try to get a count of how many roof casts are complete and keep filling up the stockpile as usual.


Last Edited By: skow Nov 29 10 7:42 AM. Edited 1 times.