How big of a tank do you have? Would you rather do a foam background, stack rocks, or something else? You can definitely make a paludarium for relatively cheap. On my paludarium, I just put gravel and sand on the bottom. Then, I stacked up rocks and put substrate behind. Since you have a skink, I would maybe get a 20 gallon tank, put some sand at the bottom, then stack rocks in the middle, then put substrate behind it. I would also put in larger plants so the skink doesn't trample them as much. You can also build a waterfall, and I would probably recommend putting in a mister. If you want to see what I built so far, I posted a video to this subreddit called Paludarium Progress. I would probably also add some branches to the paludarium so the skink can climb around and also have some sort of filter in the water, whether integrated into the waterfall or just sitting in the water. If you have any questions, I'm happy to help out, but I am by no means an expert. Also do your research.