Still working on connecting the upper and lower loops, and that means getting the bridges installed. Installing the bridges means getting some scenery below them in reasonable shape (not completely done, but basic stuff in place). And that means: rock castings. So without further delay, here we go: Rock castings (hydrocal, from 3 different molds) resting in place:

Yup, boring. Then I filled around them with Sculptamold. Why that product? 1) I'm lazy, and it's easy to work with; 2) I'm lazy, and with a little smoothing it looks like rocks once it's colored a bit.

Next, a black wash of el-cheapo acrylic paint. Rough guess on ratio is about 1:10 paint to water, maybe even thinner. At this point, the magic of color takes over. I'd been so used to working with plain white plaster that I forgot what it could look like. I was immediately impressed:

At this point, I was almost ready to say "good enough!". But the Rob Spangler Treatment (see his blog at mrhmag.com) involves more color, so off I went:

OK, that was worth it. It was looking so good to me that I had to work in some of my base color as well. All the tan ground sections will get dirt/flora treatment of some kind.

I was pretty impressed with a couple of things: 1) how simple the method is; 2) how effective it is. I still have more color to add (some reddish tints- just a bit; and two shades of gray) but I'm really excited about how this is going so far.