"Painting earth" Topic

I am painting Old Glory's 10mm Grand Redoubt. The three piece set has some gabeons but is mainly earth. So I have earth, and packed earth to play with. I can make the earth anything from brown to grey (I suppose). Any other exciting things I can do with it? (no novel insertions please!)

A little tinge of green can help.

In Texas it's red.

All depends on where you are at.

Seriously, go dig up some dirt and see how it contrasts with the surrounding area. Earth beneath the surface often has more water and is darker -- at first. As it dries out it gets lighter and even turns grey or whitish grey. Clumps of grass would not be removed.

mjc

What do you think it would be like at Borodino?

I may not get back to my post for a while. I'm off to take a look at some dirt.

Oooh I was just reading up on that last night.
It will be my next project after Hougoumont.

Please keep us updated.

For earth, I use real earth (I do this on my bases as well as for gabions and suchlike).

Well, it's actually sand, rather than earth. When I go to the beach, I sometimes take a small plastic bag with me, and when I see interesting textured or coloured sand, I grab some. It all gets mixed into an old ice-cream tub at home, so years of beach-combing have given me a tub of sand filled with all sorts of different size grains, various hues and shades, crushed shells, etc all mixed together. This gives a nice nautural texture and look.

So I just smear on some PVA, glue on the sand, add a few patches of static grass, and voila! No painting required!

Interesting Arteis, any shots of your work?

I use Cel Vinyl for this mostly. I do Burnt umber first, highlighted with wood gray then for a final highlight I use either GW's gravyard earth or bleached bone depending on the scale. For smaller scales I use bleached bone, for larger scales i do the graveyard earth and then bleached bone.

I do something similar to Pictors :

- Base coat of burnt umber
- Wet-coat with burnt sienna
- Drybrush GW bleached bone

Looks like this : link (scroll down a little)

@Angelbarracks:

Here's a good shot that shows the unpainted sand mix (as described in my post above)that I use on my bases:

picture

Thanks for the suggestions and links. I should be able to come up with a grand redoubt which the Ruskies can be proud of and the Frencies can throw themselves against with gusto.