First, grab a hunk of insulation foam and cut out the rough size of the nest. This particular nest will be about 5-6 inches wide. Also, cut out the material you will be using for a base at this point.

Now, using either a hobby knife or foam cutter, hack out the rough outside shape of the rocky nest. We chose to make it almost crater like with plenty of nooks and crags that will paint up nicely. Once your basic shape is ready, dig out the centre of the nest with your fingernail or a hobby knife. Don't worry too much about the texture inside the nest as the rougher the better really. Now, sand the edges smooth with a very fine grade sandpaper. Finally, attach the nest to the base, which has been cut and sanded to fit the nest, and wait for everything to dry.

Once the glue has dried, dig up some filler putty. Slather this stuff along the gap where the two pieces meet. This material will fill the gap and make everything look like one solid piece. Don't worry about making it too smooth as you can easily sand the filler putty after it dries. Once you do sand the filler putty it'll seem like the gap was never there!

Leave your project aside for a moment and head outside. If you happen to have some pine trees nearby, then you are in luck. Gather up a handful of pine needles and head back inside to your work area. Using scissors or clippers, cut the needles down into smaller needles. These will serve as the bedding for the nest. If you don't have a pine tree near your home, scrounge around for an old broom and cut the bristles off instead of using pine needles.

Now we need to texture the nest. Slather pretty much the whole nest in slightly watered down glue and sprinkle on some fine or coarse sand. Let this dry a bit before moving on to adding the needles. To apply the needles, glop a good bit of glue onto the nest in places around the edge, paying attention to the centre of the nest. Dump the needles onto the glue spots and move them around with your fingers so they lay just right. To finish off the step, water some glue down and go back over the needle covered areas. This will help seal the needles in place.

Paint exposed areas of foam with Chaos Black paint by hand, and then use Black Primer to completely basecoat the piece. Now you can open up your paints and go to town. The needles are a bit tricky to paint, so don't worry about them until everything else is painted. Just save them for last and all should go well. Once it's all painted, make a few small eggs or hatchlings, and slap your cherished monster in his cushy new home!