TombStones

From Simreal

1 Inscription
2 Stone Blanks
3 Transfer the Pattern
4 Carving
5 Painting

The tombstone technique I used is very simple. Someday, I may even make step-by-step pictures for it! For now, you will have to live with a simple description:

Inscription

First, you need to think up a clever inscription. Once you have these, you need to enter them into your word processor or graphics program of choice.

Note that you should make your text at least twice as big as you think it should be! The one flaw in all of this year's stones is that the text is too small and hard to read from any distance at all.

Once you have your inscriptions, print them out on a laser printer in REVERSE -- so that you can read them from the back of the paper. Many programs let you do this.

Note that if you have an ink-jet printer, this technique may still work. Not all laser printers work, though, so you might have to use the alternative method.

Stone Blanks

Of course, you need to make the tombstones themselves. I used simple pink insulating foam, available pretty much everywhere. Most of the stones are two layers of foam glued together. Some of them have 1/4" plywood backing. It's all pretty much random -- it depended on what my helpers decided to do.

The cutting was done with a hot-wire foam cutter, available at many hobby stores.

Transfer the Pattern

Once you have your inscription and your stone blank, you can transfer the pattern to the stone.

My preferred way is to actually transfer the black toner off the paper and onto the foam blank. To do this, lay the paper toner-side-down on the blank.

Now lightly moisten a cotton ball with acetone (or whatever you can find find will dissolve your ink or toner; feel free to experiment). Rubbing the cotton ball on the paper, the solvent will soak through and dissolve the toner. This will then transfer, at least some, onto the foam.

If you use too much solvent, you will also dissolve the foam!

Alternate methods include lightly tack-gluing the paper to the foam (spray glue? I dunno...) and carve the letters and patterns out through the paper. Or you c an use a sharp stylus to transfer the pattern onto the soft foam. Or... use your imagination!

Carving

I use a dremel flex-shaft tool with a cutting bit to carve the foam. I simply go over the pattern, cutting out the letters.

To remove large areas, for example the background in a raised pattern, I'll use a straight-edged cutter. For letters, the straight cutter makes a clean cut. However, for a more slope-edged, decorative look you can use a conical cutter, or even a ball cutter.

Other people like to cut their letters out with an X-Acto knife, so you can try that, too. I found the dremel (actually, I have a larger jeweler's flex shaft) fast and easy.

You can also cut, with a knife or dremel tool, cracks and other faults into the stone to age it.

Once the basic carving is done, you can continue the aging and weathering by going over the foam with a heat gun. This can slightly melt and smooth the letters, make the surface of the foam wavy, and so forth. Just don't breath the fumes!

Painting

The stones here are simply painted... you can also sand and even joint compound to the paint (see: Monster Mud) to give it body and texture.

A gray background to start, and then you can sponter over it with a dusting of lighter and darker grays. Or use any faux stone-painting technique that takes your fancy!