Basing materials

[Rich W]

Hi everyone. I'm hoping for some advice from your huge wealth of knowledge on the best way of doing basing for dioramas.

Firstly, what would you recommend for patches of soil?

Secondly, what would you recommend for grass? I've watched Youtube videos which make look everything simple, but I cannot establish which are the best materials to use. Do you use scatter granules or static grass? And if you use static grass, do you use an applicator (in which case what is the best/cost effective one)?

I'm hoping to do some landscape from South Africa, so there would be patches of sol and then big patches of fairly tall grass.

Any help from you experts would be great. And the simpler the suggestion, the better!

Thanks all!!!

[Susofrick]

I used an old shaving brush for making tall grass. Some pictures:







The bases are made of plaster and just painted and washed.

[Mayapia]

For mine I mix spackle with paint and a couple different sizes of sand (you don't need too much, realistically ground would look fairly smooth at this scale). Then, drybrush until I'm happy with it, and for short grass I use static grass. Besides being a realistic texture, the spackle has the advantage of helping secure the figure on the base and also hides the base that comes on the figure. Glue-on grass clumps, foliage, flowers, etc. can add a ton, but those can get pretty expensive so I don't use them. Those shaving brush ones look great though, so I might steal that idea

[Wiking]

I like the two hunters ,watch out for lions. And the two hungry lions behind of them.

This is based on a martial situation.

[C M Dodson]

For fine soil, gravel etc chinchilla dust is cheap and effective.

I used dyed horse hair for Quatre Bras rye but Woodland Scenics do similar long grasses which will save you a lot of trouble.

Grass scatter is also effective.

Static applicators also produce nice effects.

Have a play and experiment.

Best wishes,

Chris

[Beano Boy]

Yes that is a good tip Chris,i opened up a huge bag of Chinchilla sand the other day.
Kiln dried sand i use too. PVA Glue with sand heaped upon it,
or Gunnar`s Plaster of Paris mix is good fun too. Static grass yes,and i have an applicator. BB

[Bluefalchion]

I don't have much to add here, except for two things:

1) I hate creating full terrain bases because I usually just get goop on my figures and I am bad at it so it still looks like crap;

2) I love this forum and I love seeing the terrain the others create. You guys (and some very few gals) are amazing.

[Beano Boy]

Just thought i`d add another tip from my child hood days.

i used my Mothers dried tea out of the Brooke Bound packet scattered on top of wallpaper paste.
It was all i had then along with a tired looking piece of cardboard. Needless to say really this highly organised chaos did not lead to the success i had envisaged, and i had to pay for my Dear Mothers Tea at threepence a week until i`d replaced the money it cost for a weeks worth of tea. i never thought to use the coffee, as it was Camp Coffee in a square tall bottle. i smile now at remembering a time when my dreamy ideas never seemed to work out well for little me.

May everyone enjoy their hobby no matter how many times things go wrong. BB

[Bluefalchion]

Just thought i`d add another tip from my child hood days.

i used my Mothers dried tea out of the Brooke Bound packet scattered on top of wallpaper paste.
It was all i had then along with a tired looking piece of cardboard. Needless to say really this highly organised chaos did not lead to the success i had envisaged, and i had to pay for my Dear Mothers Tea at threepence a week until i`d replaced the money it cost for a weeks worth of tea. i never thought to use the coffee, as it was Camp Coffee in a square tall bottle. i smile now at remembering a time when my dreamy ideas never seemed to work out well for little me.

May everyone enjoy their hobby no matter how many times things go wrong. BB

Now that you have a few quid to spend on hobby related items, consider this a request to try the experiment again. And this time, post pics. I want to see what dry tea leaves spread out on wallpaper paste look like when deployed by a master hobbyist.

As for me, I just had a similar experience on the opposite end. My five-year-old wanted his lego man to be a different color, so he plopped up on to my painting table and squeezed himself out a glop of Vallejo Prussian Blue. Since my work station has razor sharp cutting tools and various poisons of the worst description, I had to tell him not to go back in there without me to help him. But I suspect it won't be long before he is painting up Nappy cavalry, asking Marvin for advice, and challenging our members to duels on the fields of honor!

[Beano Boy]

Bluefalchion,
Well it certainly would be interesting to say the least to try again with the elusive tea leaf test.

'Try,try again', does come to my mind even though there has been a break of 63 years since that soggy miserable first attempt.

To solve the tea leaf equation,'Churned up Slush!', also comes to mind. So perhaps with the twilight of, 'Tea Break Part Two', relief might well be in sight for that brief topic of mushy investigation.

It is highly true in degree of angle that i am master of ,'cause and chaos !'
Which has always been such sweet Beano Boy fun to do, and especially write about.

For instance,Cause and Chaos Theory within one written metaphor, is that a butterfly flapping its wings in China, can cause a Hurricane in Texas. Ain`t that kinda foolhardy cool?
Bye bye everyone. BB

[Susofrick]

I am also very interested in how it may look! You really are a master modeller what ever you say yourself. And bits of memories from child hood is always interesting to read! We all have background and none of it is uninteresting.

[steve_pickstock]

A few months ago I was watching a Youtube video and the guy suggested using baking soda for basing because it has a much finer particle size which looks better in scale. I tried it and I have to agree. The youtuber was talking about 25 and 28mm figures but for our 1/72nd figures it is doubly true.
Add to this the way that baking soda reacts to super glue and you have a really useful idea.
I glue my figures to MDF or thin plywood bases with clear glue or Bostic glue, then go around the base with a cheao super glue, being very careful to not get any on the figure itself. I then dip the base in baking soda. The glue hardens nearly instantly, making a solid, hard product. It's really tough (in fact I have seen people use it to build up replacement plastic).
It takes paint well, can be used on polystyrene and looks scale.

[Rich W]

Thank you for all your suggestions! Steve, when you say baking soda do you mean bicarbonate soda?

[Beano Boy]

The TEA is on order! It should be great fun. BB

[FredG]

The TEA is on order! It should be great fun. BB

If nothing else it will smell great

[Susofrick]

Teatime will be partea-time! Looking very forward to see results!

[Beano Boy]

Great to see FredG`s, and Gunnar`s, friendly banter on the Forum.

The interesting thing is Tea is much cheaper to use for scattering about
rather than woodland scenics flock for say, winter scenes. Eh! Snow is white BB.
Wing Nut,is making sense.
please just let bb, continue?

The dirt for instance underneath the snow, seen as children giggle about,
while rolling on and off a large snowman`s body into shifting ,ship shape place.
____O the magic of playful children, we have all been there at least once.
i believe at times that i never really left. Or even wished to.

Yay, Tea upon bases,
Simple is as simple does i guess? BB

[FredG]

The dirt for instance underneath the snow, seen as children giggle about,
while rolling on and off a large snowman`s body into shifting ,ship shape place.
____O the magic of playful children, we have all been there at least once.
i believe at times that i never really left. Or even wished to.

BB

If we're the Lost Boys, does that make Benno Peter Pan?

[Peter]

If we're the Lost Boys, does that make Benno Peter Pan?

Who are you? Can you identify yourself please?

[FredG]

* Creates a hand shadow image of a Dromedary on the wall and winks at Peter*