"Help with Snow Bases" Topic

Now that I have found a source for my 15mm Winter War Finns (thanks to all here at TMP) I need to pick the collective brain again. What is your best method for making realistic snow? Ideally, I don't want the entire base in snow. I like to have a brown dirt with static grass base with sections od snow and footprints of the soldiers. Any help would be appreciated.

Ralph

start with sand, paint it burnt umber then highlight it with a lighter brown and then lightly with an off white. Get some of the snow flock that they sell, paint white paint on it in places where you want the snow and then dunk the base in the snow flock.

Woodland scenics have snow flocking. Use it as you would use grass flocking.

When I did Trenton, I just sprinkled it from the shaker all over the table. I certainly did not want to have my Hessians or Americans on permanently snow covered bases.

Ralph,

This site has a couple of very interesting articles on snow bases:

link

CC

2nd Woodland Scenics snow. It's the way to go.

I use a light grey felt table cloth and spray splotches of white paint, camo pattern style. The when it is dry, I sprinkle the Woodlands Scenics snow on top and it looks very nice.

I did a few snow bases. I went with Woodland Scenics snow. I did several tests first: snow over brown , blues, grey, white, etc; I also did several differnt textures sand, rocks, smooth, etc. The snow over regular (browns, greens, and such) basing schemes looked like it had just begun snowing or was melting. Over light greys, light blues, and white it looked like a deeper snow. Besides dipping or sprinkling the snow on I also mixed it with PVA glue and sculpted it on, this gave the best walked on or distressed snow I created. My first step was just to quickly paint different tests on a piece of cardboard. To get slushy dirty snow you might try adding a little brown ink to the PVA and snow mix.

Hope this helps,

Ron

Do you mean you want your bases look like this? link

Spread some watered down white glue in the base and deep it in the container with dirt. After that is dry spread some watered down white glue here and ther and deep your base in a container with grass. After that is dry spread some waterd down white glue here and there and deep your base in a container with baking soda. Drying time for each step is about half an hour, depending what you use for your dirt and grass.

I mix white talcum powder into acrylic white. This can produce a nice thick mixture that will be flat white, but also allows for overhang on rocks etc. I usually purchase a cheap tube of white, then add the talcum powder. Cheap but very effective.

Oh and in case you didnt know. A touch of talcum powder mixed into gloss paint will turn it into matt.

Glue and corn starch make a good, flat, smooth base for the woodland scenics.

I did a textured, earth coloured base, dry brushed that with off-white, then put patches of PVA glue on, and dunked the base in talcum powder.
Looks good, smells nice :-)

Thanks for the info guys. 2 questions:

1) I haven't seen the Woodland Scenics snow up close. Is it a granular surface when done or is it smooth?

2) I've heard that the baking soda/pva glue combination turns yellow over time. While yellow snow does exist, I don't want my opponents to think my Finns have weak bladders just before combat! Any truth to this?

Ralph

I always used Andrea miniatures´snow and I think it is the best one in the market. For the bases, I did them with cork and drybrush with different greys. Then some glazes of blue or brown or green and when you finish that part, just add the snow with water and glue :D

Snow, i used wood filler from a tube. It mixes with water , behaves like it has surface tension and drys hard. It naturally takes up a shape that looks like melting snow and then , when dry, I paint it with common white emulsion.

cheap as snowy chips

picture

I've seen a pretty resilient snowjob done with just white spackle and a scrubby pad. Lay down a layer of spackle and then pat it with the scrubby pad to texture. It passes the arms-length test at this stage and is good enough for terrain bits. Finishing with a bit of a specific snow cover and/or blue OR gold interference paint (not both) would allow it to stand a closer inspection.

I haven't seen much snow flock around lately due to global warming.

Go ask this question on Steve Dean site,they have been experimenting with different techeniques lately, I think the "court jester" has come up with a really good way of doing it.