Monday, March 11, 2013

Faux Stone

Building believable fake stone is an art and a science.

This month's LiveDesign Magazine has an interesting article by Libby Slate on the building of Disney's new California Adventure Park's Cars Land (sadly, not available online), but I found some great photos HERE at themeparks.about.com.

According to LiveDesign, the basic structure for the faux stone tail fins of the 125 ft. tall Cadillac Range needed 4,000 pounds of steel as a framework.  Cement plaster was sprayed on this frame, then each fresh section was hand-sculpted for two hours while the cement was setting up.  Its carving characteristics changed, as you might imagine, during that time.

Layers of paint were later sprayed on, then tweaked by hand: first three basic colors - brown, gray, yellow - then up to 25 others in 4-6 washes.  Plus some silver leaf to reflect light.  The work took 25-30 artisans from all over the world.  I'm not sure for how long, but just experimenting with materials and techniques took two months.  (Wish I got that kind of time when I need to make faux stone!)

Carving faux stone - no idea where this photo comes from originally... 
if its creator objects to its use here, please let me know and I'll remove it.

Fake rock.  Real vegetation.

(Although Agentinian saguaros stand in for the endangered and protected regular ol' saguaros.)

Pretty spectacular scenery!

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