"Terrain Color in the Holy Land" Topic

I am working on some Holy Land terrain boards for DBA 15mm the Chariot Wars Tournament at Adepticon (but they should also be useful for Crusader games, etc.).

I have never been there, so I need to use photos to work out the color of dirt, grass, etc.

I found this helpful site with photos of walking tours of Bible Lands.

biblewalks.com/Index.html

(Also researching types of trees and found some interesting sites too.)

I am curious at to what others have used as a base ‘dirt' color. Any input is welcome.

Thanks.

Bill

My 15mm Mutiny armies are ready for an outing. Can anyone make some recommendations here? I see TVAG has a range of paper ones on PDF, but if I can, I'd like something close to the 15mm resin I use for North America, Northern Europe and the Med.

@Robert – JR Miniatures used to have Middle Eastern ones that could work for parts of India (the TVAG ones are nice and specific to a different part of India IIRC). I think other ME ones could work too.

Bill,

I've been to Israel and Jordan. I'd say the ground-cover coloring depends on exactly where you are -- coastal areas, the true "desert" such as Sinai Peninsula, or somewhere in between.

For all my "desert" and "arid" terrain, I use a very simple 3 color dry-brush of acrylic craft paints (which I have custom matched at Home Depot, in order to get large quantities at a more affordable price):

1. Base coat of a slightly reddish medium-dark brown (close match to CraftSmart "BROWN");

2. Heavy dry-brush of caramel (matches Folkart "HONEYCOMB");

3. Highlight dry-brush of "sandstone", a pale shade of tan (matches Delta Ceramcoat "SANDSTONE").

Looks like this:

Here's a link to a page on my blog with some more details re: the color scheme, mixed in with how I built that river terrain board:

link

For more of a pure sandy desert finish, you can easily go heavier on the final "Sandstone" highlight coat. IMHO sticking with the brown and caramel undercoat gives some nice depth and dimension to the ground.

When I was in Egypt I noticed that there was basically two colors: lighter shade of sand and then the darker shade of rock (almost chocolate).

Thanks for the suggestions.

That looke great Mad and very much in keeping with my techniques too.

Bill