"Grassy fields in tiny scales" Topic

Many years ago I made myself some cheap shorelines by cutting up cheap 1 foot square vinyl flooring tiles, painting them with a base dark green and a tan along the coastal edges, and coating them with ground foam grass and very fine tan sand. They look nice enough, but a little plain.

Last year I decided to improve the looks of my shorelines by decorating them with terrain bits – trees, buildings, roads, farms, etc. To this end I started collecting Irregular 2mm towns, villages, farms, etc. for use with my 1/2400 scale miniatures, and a variety of models from Irregular, Brigade Models, Langton, and anything else I come across for my 1/1200 scale ships.

Now I've run into a problem – the ground foam "grass" is unrealistically puffy. and looks all wrong next to the tiny buildings.

Since I've never been happy with the weight of the vinyl floor tiles anyway (they're very dense) I'm happy to replace them, but this time I want to make something that will look okay for small scales between 1/2400 and 1/600.

What makes good fields of grass in 2mm?

- Ix

I would just use green paint. Or else cotton fabric painted green so the texture in the cloth makes it look grassy. Or perhaps a photograph suitable doctored?

Really, in 1/1200 grass would be flat. Even a 6' tall corn stalk in 1/1200 is only 0.06" tall. And flock or grass or scatter will be woefully out of scale.

The problem with paint is that it looks like…. paint. I'm not sure how to make a large expanse of painted green look like grass instead.

The ground foam looks like grass from a distance because it has so many tiny surfaces that alternate light/dark and yellow/green. Standing a few feet above a ground foam field it looks like grass and the scale doesn't matter much. It's where the farms, towns, forts and other built-up areas in tiny scales sit on/near it that it looks out of whack.

I have experimented with using cloth, but it's hard to match with paint on the 2mm terrain pieces, and difficult to blend at the edges (like, where a beach or rocky cliff would be). I'm hoping to find a terraining technique that covers a surface on a table or on a tiny built-up-area vignette with the same colors, so they blend in at the edges.

- Ix

How about laying down sand and painting it green. Get very fine sand. Think it would give the right textured look heaviky dry brushed? Be cheap enough to test I guess…

Fine turf from Woodland Scenics would probably give you a good effect.

Funny, I was pondering the same problem as I want to build scenery for my 1/2400 ships. Painting fine sand seems like a good idea!
How do the Irregular 2mm buildings work with 1/2400 ships? Do they look all right?

For a very fine sand effect, you might consider Chinchilla dust:

You will also want some variation in color, consider studying Google Earth images at a height similar to that you expect to view the scene.

An Airbrush would be very useful for applying the color.

Tile grout is pretty fine textured.

MH

Tile grout is pretty fine textured. Then paint it.

MH

Any of these mediums might work if mixed with green craft paint:
liquitex.com/blacklava
liquitex.com/naturalsand
liquitex.com/ceramicstucco

These might also but I'm not so sure about some of them…

liquitex.com/blendedfibers
liquitex.com/resinsand

If you have an art supply store near you those mediums will usually be displayed with small panels nearby showing the actual effects of each. You can decide which you like and buy the appropriate pot.

I'd also second those who said to consider fine (not course) ground turf.

I agree with the idea of really fine sand and then a really light dry brush over the base green color with a tan or off white.

A lot of good ideas here. Sand sounds promising, and I'll look into the gel mediums. None of the gel mediums I have now have appropriately sized grit in them, but the Liquitex sand and ceramic stucco have potential.

- Ix

Last night I tried using the fine ground foam "grass mix" flocking on a couple sample pieces, to see how it looks. It turns out, it looks fine. Since it's easy to do and it matches all my other terrain bits, I guess that's what I'm going to use.

Now I need to figure out how to make teeny tiny roads to link all my little forts and towns and farms and estates together….

- Ix