"Fine turf or texture paint for barren ground basing?" Topic

Most of my land-based miniatures are historical so I use Woodland Scenic Blended Turf as it can pass for a wide variety of terrains. I want to start a science fiction army and wanted to go with a different basing scheme. I was thinking a simple brown to allow for urban areas well as desolate planets. I am trying to decide if I should use textured paints or Woodland Scenic Fine Turf Earth or Soil.

It seems like texture paint would be a better way to go. I like using turf for earth bound miniatures because it gives a nice foliage look, at least at 3mm and 6mm which is what I use. But I don't know what that would look like for trying to show barren soil. But at 3mm scale it might give a nice rugged look.

Does anyone have any examples of using fine turf for dirt? Does it work? How does it look? Would texture paint be a better way to go for 3mm/6mm?

I have no strong opinion on this. I dont think the turf is a meaningful step up from plain painted bases.

A fellow gamer who has been at this much longer than I is a staunch opponent of turfed or flocked bases. His experience is that these materials "shed" over time and get into everything, like sand in your swim trunks at the beach.

If you've flocked, your figs are still welcome on his table, but if he buys a painted unit with flocked bases, job #1 is rebasing and eradicating the flock into a baggy then the bin.

I sometimes use a pale sand. I use various colors of paint to "glue" it on. The different colors of paint can affect the sand, giving it different tones.
Dark brown, dark green are my two favorites.
You can also swirl around some lighter colors for yet more effects.
The key here is to go light on the sand.

For 3mm or 6mm, I'd personally use a matte or flat paint, not even textured. If a soldier is 3mm tall, then how small would a blade of grass or grain of sand be?

In the end, try both and see what you prefer! The texture you like is what you should use.

All of my thousands of 6mm and 3mm are on painted bases. At these scales I don't feel like you need flock. and for historical gaming, I am not wild about troops carrying around there own tufts, rocks, grass, etc. It even feels a little odd sometimes.

For most 28mm's, I do the base surface in a fine sand (not paint, actual sand ;-), then glue on some flock for low grass or other weeds (usually where the sand is thinnest on the base.) The sand I use is actually filler used for resin casting (the resin is long gone, but I still have a bucket of the sand filler… ;-)

I have use this to flock my 6 mm figure bases.

link

I also use Woodland Scenics Blended Turf on my 6mm and 2mm bases. For more arid theatres, I just use fine builders sand.

Plain bases on game cloths or flocked Hexon are too jarring in terms of texture contrast.

SF I just use fine sand (like for hamsters) and paint to glue it down. For 'terrestrial' armies, Woodland Scenic T-49 Blended Turf as that is what is on my GeoHex. I usually add some static grass as then you get some random single strands poking out