Expanded polystyrene as a building material in dioramas.
Expanded polystyrene is a material that is used as insulation in construction. Its characteristic, like polystyrene, is easy to cut and process. The structure is much denser than polystyrene and is not very flexible. At the same time it allows it to be engraved with extreme ease, so much so that you must be careful not to leave nail marks while working. The cut is done either with well-sharpened blades or with hot wire. There are many machines for cutting expanded polystyrene and some prototypes also with numerical control.
The best adhesive for this material is vinavil, even if drying times are quite long. Once worked and given a few coats of colored primer, the expanded polystyrene also takes on a certain resistance. The mixture of products to give the primer is 1/3 vinyl vinyl, 1/3 wall putty and 1/3 acrylic paint , water as little as possible to dilute until the mixture can be applied with a brush. There are two enemies of this material and they are contact with solvents or nitro paints, and contact with high heat objects.
With this material you can emulate almost all scenarios, from the asphalt road surface, to stone or brick walls or reproduce simple plaster. By searching on Youtube you can find many tutorials for making French windows and much more. Unlike polystyrene, it has the typical pellets that make up the sheet, and for certain types of work even simple polystyrene can be fine.
There are many other materials for building a diorama, but expanded polyester is undoubtedly the material that best lends itself to these works. Wood can be, together with other materials, a component of the scene that is composed.
