Newbie Question

Another method: real dirt. Run a few different colors of dried dirt through seive, retain smallest particles. Put in bowl. Small twigs in an old coffee bean grinder, 3 or 4 quick pumps (for exposed roots), add to bowl. Smallest ballast, few different colors, add to bowl. Woodland Scenics Scenic Cement to bowl, mix and bring to a real soft cookie dough consistency. Add cheapest earth tone acrylic to taste. Serve. Before dry, lightly dust with earth tone sands and dusts/pigments to depict paths, roads, etc. Add larger ballasts to edges of roadways, paths and smaller to center. Pat down slightly. Running tires, scale feet, tracks on paths/roads into lightly damp ground will sometimes moisten those tracks and give appropriate shadowing. If not, wait until fully dry and wash tracks ever so slightly with oil wash. Seal with couple of coats of matte varnish.

For grass, weeds, I make mixture of static grasses, cut field grasses, small bits clump foliage and fine turfs. With old paint brush, coat couple square inches of ground with Scenic Cement, add grasses with tweezers. Spritz with more scenic cement. Dry brush grasses to kill sheen. Seal with matte varnish.

Vary the colors of grass and ground mixtures in patches. Play with it. Experiment on scrap wood. Have a blast. This my favorite part of modeling.

SteveM

P.S.- I do love Celluclay as well. I try to change it around, to avoid uniformity in my dios.

Cellucaly fan here. too. In additin to the paint and white glue, I add old model railroad turf, not the foam stuff, but a more textured, woody product thet I've had for years. This gives moe texture to the mixture. Also, I drill holes in my base to give the Celluclay more to bite. I use fine rialroad ballast for sand texture and paint and apply a wash to liven it up.

Unless you're depicting a highway or a football field, you should always use something to depict the ground. Nothing in nature is as flat a piece of wood.

What I like...   

I use Celluclay- well wait- let me start at the big-inning.

Make sure to seal your wooden base with something clear and waterproof- as it will warp! I like Celluclay (A paper-mache' product available everywhere).

Add this to the base- run some masking tape around the edges to keep a nice perimiter to seal or paint. Mix waterbased earth colored paint and water- and add this water mix to the Celluclay. A large dollop of white glue and viola-

Install this. Smooth it out and add your sand, rocks, etc. right to this surface. it will look fantastic./ For grass- add static grass while it is still wet. Start with brown- then when dry add some light green over the brown. Add a mix of white glue and water for the 2nd coat of grass. Drill holes to add grass, weeds, etc. Trees can be aded, etc. make sure to add any builkdings, etc. while it is still wet as it dries like concrete with the white glue added. Also- make sure to add vehicle tracks and impression so your vehicle "sits" properly. Email me with questions- and Ill send some in-progress pics if you need them-

James (jdun91764@yahoo.com)

For the basic application of turf, I paint white glue in about 2x2 inch sections, then sprinkle the ground cover on top. The glue won't show through, and to further ensure that it stays put, I coat it in cheap hair spray. This works particularly well with static grass. Hope this helps! (This is all done on top of celluclay of course.) 

Hi rwscull!  I've made a few dios now and I find that you have to dilute the glue with water before you apply it to the base.  You really don't need much to get that stuff to stay down.  Remember, it's really more of an illusion that you are trying to create. If you want to do things like make tracks this can be done using different materials than just sand. There are many pastes you can use and different painting techniques to create this.  Good luck.