The materials are quite simple:
- MDF panels, I screwed them together with an angle to make a L-shaped background.
- I put some nails through the MDF to fix styrofoam boards (were simply from packaging material of a fridge) to it; that won't hold secure already, but will hold them temporarily in place for the next steps.
- One cartridge of construction foam, with that I filled out especially the area above and under the boards to now really fix them to the MDF, plus made some stone-like shapes.
- Once that has dried: two layers of grout, tile glue and in the last layer I mixed some sand (from the desert here) and before dry sprinkled them again with sand which I pressed a bit into the tile glue.
- Once that has dried: Lightly brushing off excess sand; normally it could just stay there but I made the background outside of the enclosure (as the enclosure opens from the top) and don't wanted to create a giant mess while bringing them in.
- Then glued the background into the enclosure using aquarium-grade silicone.
In total I had used up those materials:
- two MDF plates covering more than 3/4 of the length and width and 3/4 of the height of the enclosure (enclosure is fully glass and I wanted to leave some space allowing my dragon to look out above and next the background as the enclosure is placed against two windows)
- about 1 square meter of styrofoam; styrofoam plates will do, but I liked especially the shapes from packaging material
- 1 cartridge construction foam
- 5 kg ready-made tile glue (it's a paste; also available as a powder to mix with water)
- about 1 kg of desert sand (here there is an orange and a purple kind of sand; I mixed the orange one with the tile glue and sprinkled the purple sand over it)
These images show the process a bit better.
The first image shows it without the tile glue, the second with.
I like the method as the materials quite automatically make a stone-like appearance. Despite I do quite a lot of woodworking, crafts, modelmaking: experience with that would not be required, I bet really everybody could make it as the "magic" is in the materials.
It also holds up very well, despite my dragon climbs and jumps a lot and has sharp (but not overgrown) claws.
For the substrate in the enclosure, I use desert sand and some rough stones collected in the desert. The enclosure also has some wooden branches and roots. E.g. the "half cave" on the left, I closed it up then with excavator clay (a clay safe for reptiles, holds up its shape but not suitable for making a complete cave and needs some support structure) and a gnarly root to make the entrance quite narrow.
