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Well I originally came on this site to find ideas for building a terrarium for my whites tree frog, but well I decided to get some darts too
. I have a 29 gallon tank laying around from when I was quarantining stuff for my reef, and I'm going to turn it into a viv for a pair/trio of azureus frogs. I love the scenery in the movie Avatar, and since I'm going to have little blue skinned inhabitants in the tank I wanted to put a few Pandora influenced touches inside.
First off: glowing mushrooms
I think shelf mushrooms are cooler looking that normal ones, so I wanted to make some to stick on the side of the viv. I got air-dry modeling clay, acrylic water based paint, and marine grade epoxy resin (also for something else) to make the shrooms. I made the mushrooms out of clay, which I think turned out pretty well considering I havn't made anything out of clay since middle school ten years ago.
Then I tried to paint them
. I put on a layer of light tan paint, then some brown lines to try and make them look like this.
But I didn't like it cause I couldn't get the lines thin enough, so painted over them again white tan. I then got the idea to make them blue, since I was going to paint the upper side with blue glow-in-the-dark paint. It didn't turn out so good.
Then my glow-in-the-dark paints came in the mail and I was too excited and figured I could try to paint the lines again after painting the glow paint on. The glow paint has a slight greenish tint. It took 7 coats to get the glow even and not spotty. After that I tried painting lines again but it didn't work, then I tried drawing lines on with a colored pencil but it didn't stick. So I got frustrated and painted over the glow paint with tan paint and started over.
*make sure you like the paint job before wasting your expensive glow paints*
Next I tried to paint them like this pic I found.
And it turned out pretty good!
Kind of a burnt/brown orange with slightly purple edges. Then I did another 7 coats of the glow paint on the tops of the mushrooms. On the undersides of the mushshrooms I painted a yellow/green color and put some brown speckles on the stem. After that I did 7 coats of Green glow-in-the-dark paint. I took some pics in the dark but you can't make anything out...
And it's time for bed so more tomorrow.
First off: glowing mushrooms
I think shelf mushrooms are cooler looking that normal ones, so I wanted to make some to stick on the side of the viv. I got air-dry modeling clay, acrylic water based paint, and marine grade epoxy resin (also for something else) to make the shrooms. I made the mushrooms out of clay, which I think turned out pretty well considering I havn't made anything out of clay since middle school ten years ago.


Then I tried to paint them

But I didn't like it cause I couldn't get the lines thin enough, so painted over them again white tan. I then got the idea to make them blue, since I was going to paint the upper side with blue glow-in-the-dark paint. It didn't turn out so good.

Then my glow-in-the-dark paints came in the mail and I was too excited and figured I could try to paint the lines again after painting the glow paint on. The glow paint has a slight greenish tint. It took 7 coats to get the glow even and not spotty. After that I tried painting lines again but it didn't work, then I tried drawing lines on with a colored pencil but it didn't stick. So I got frustrated and painted over the glow paint with tan paint and started over.
Next I tried to paint them like this pic I found.

And it turned out pretty good!


Kind of a burnt/brown orange with slightly purple edges. Then I did another 7 coats of the glow paint on the tops of the mushrooms. On the undersides of the mushshrooms I painted a yellow/green color and put some brown speckles on the stem. After that I did 7 coats of Green glow-in-the-dark paint. I took some pics in the dark but you can't make anything out...
And it's time for bed so more tomorrow.