PinkNosedPenguin wrote:Inspirational work as always

. Amazing how you carve the polystyrene so realistically!
That larger bridge in particular is also very fine - love the distressed look to the wood and the sagging effect
P.S. Nice to see you managed to put Christmas Day to such good use! But a bit horrified to hear about "chopping, throwing away" such splendid work

Thank you for your kind words, PinkNosedPenguin.
The stone carving is a thousand times easier than it seems and every little kind could do it. The important things are
a) looking with real attention real ones and
b) giving one's hands full true freedom to do it instead of playing director and assuming one 'knows'.
There is something amazing in foam: it's incredibly low -if any- memory-, even worse than my lone brain cell's.
That means one can't get back the untouched material if one stone went wrong.
The good side of it is an ugly shaped stone can always be splet in two or more beautiful ones.
Also, if part of a wall, one or many stones, have gone really unnacceptably wrong, it rales a few seconds to cut off and remove that area and fill it with one or several pieces of same or different foam.
Actually sometimes I do that on purpose: filling with bricks or whatever a spoiled area of stones adds lots of realism to an old wall.
The only true trick is investing in it (or whatever one do) our joy. Without that, even if one invested a lot of money in expensive materials and tools, one is missing the essential.
Actually I like to let my hands play with the materials and tools as they were two little boys full of curiosity, just as my dad used to do with me. That's my most important learning moment every single day.
Regarding the chopping & throwing away,
well, I read your message yesterday several times wanting to give you an honest, clear answer. But got tangled in words and thoughts every time so left it for today hoping to find something else to share than letters soup.
Fortunately Mountain saved me with his brilliant words:
Mountain wrote:Doozers from Fraggle Rock used to do that to the lovely structures they would build as they just loved to build and ran out of space if they did not knock down to build some more.
Mountain: I never heard about Fraggle Rock until you wrote that so jumped into the net and then into Youtube.
BIG THANKS, MAN!
Daniel