snow diorama how to?

Hello y'all, I wanted to reply with a word of warning about using baking soda for anything having to do with modelling. Hear ye, my tale of woe... When I was just a young turd I used baking soda mixed with whatever appropriate color paint to simulate mud, rust, whatever...mostly lacquers. Anyhoo, one day I noticed a gunky, resinous substance--like an oil "sweating" out of my models. It pretty much ruined half my collection. To make a long, sad story short, I eventually wound up calling Mr Armand Hammer's company as well as Testors paint and after much discussion, we finally came up with the conclusion that baking SODA ( I dont know if this applies to POWDER) is far from a chemically inert substance-- and not something that plays nice with other random chemicals. In my case it seemed to break down the paint pigments and ooze 'em all over my tanks. Now, I wrote this hint/warning into FSM years ago and a few guys swore blue that they naver had any problem and that my facts weren't conclusive, yada yada...All I'll say is that I stopped using the stuff and have NEVER had another ruination as such, so...But I'll bet that if your'e gonna seal that dio with lacquer, your'e tempting fate. So, if you never had any problem with it--great! But I'll never touch the stuff again!

WS, baking, are ok only one problem, they're white, just white.  Now I really hate to do this, as I don't know if it's possible to obtain this stuff anymore, I sure hope so as I need more, it's a material called Elvacite 2042.  Made by dupont, it has glistening quality that looks more like scale snow than any other thing I've seen.  Look up dupont,(Sorry lost my contact info.)and tell them what you're doing and ask if they can send you a sample, they sent me two lbs=1kg.  Good luck!

  Luis,

   I'm going to throw a monkey wrench into the discussion here and by no means to discredit any suggestions from anyone I have used baking soda for many dios and found it quite successful. No bugs yet and snow does discolor anyway. You could even use paint to "dye" the snow any color you wanted from mud-mixed to whatever (yellow?) hey, let's be realistic in our dioramas right?

  I use dirt sprinkled on after a coating of carpenters glue on whatever I use to built up a surface profile then I use clear -drying glue to hold the baking soda in place. The clear-drying clue creates the look of ice, that goes along with snow. In fact if you apply the clear glue to any surface with any amount you could simulate ice in spots and icicles are possible. 

  Keep up the great work,

  johncpo   

SteveM,

It didn't say I need to add water to it.  It is flaky (just like powdered mashed potato) and looks very convincing.  it is a 3 ounce bag and paid about $2.49.  Company that distributes it is call Party America. 

m1garand wrote:

I was at the gift wrapping/christmas/holiday special shop last week and I found a bag of simulated snow flakes for about $2.00.  I grabbed a few bags to see if it will work.

Is that stuff the kind that you add water? I saw a version that you add the H2O and it puffs up to make snow for Xmas dios. It looked better before she (the lady elf) added the water.

SteveM 

I was at the gift wrapping/christmas/holiday special shop last week and I found a bag of simulated snow flakes for about $2.00.  I grabbed a few bags to see if it will work.

Gino

I was playing with the WS Snow today at hobby lobby and trying to figure out just WHAT it was.......it LOOKED pretty good in the bottle, the way it tends to spread out on its own and such. I have a small scale vignette (1/100) in work now and the base will be snow covered, and the Mecha (a Kempfer from the Gundam series) will be lightly dusted in it, as well as the ground itself being covered.

 Thanks!  Ill use that forty percent off coupon to good use!

David

 

First off, get rid of the baking soda.  Best thing to use for snow is a product by Woodland Scenics called Snow.  The baking soda (and any other food items) will discolor and/or be eaten by bugs over time.  The WS Snow is made from MicroBalloons.  They are tiny spheres of styrene and look great.  You simply spray the area you want them on with some pump hairspray and then sprinkle it on.  Repeat the process till the snow is as thick as you want it.  It sells for around $8 for a 32oz. shaker bottle; enough for a few blizzards.

Here is the result.

 

Good luck.