Grass airfield terrain

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Grass Airfield Terrain

Step by step

Versione inglese | 30.03.2020

I decided to present one of my models on nice solid base with part of an airfield terrain and one figure of German mechanic from Kellerkind miniatures. So at first I of course obtained nice wooden base, already prepainted in dark brown from my favorite local carpenter.

To protect sides of the base from all those colours and weathering products, at first I masked its sides by normal masking tape used to cover furniture when you are painting your walls at home. The cheapest one from Tesco was absolutely sufficient.

Upper side of wooden base was scratched by knife to get a better grip for additional layers that will be glued on to it.

First layer that was glued on top was a pancake of modelling clay covering the whole surface. So at first I applied white glue all over the wooden base...

... and then put modelling clay on it and pushed by hand to properly stick together. You can buy this modelling clay in all hobby shops, actually this one was even bought in Tesco together with masking tape.

While modelling clay was still wet, I cut its rims to cover the exact shape of base top.

While the surface still wasn't dry, I once again applied white glue on the top of modelling clay...

... and sprinkled small stones, sand and dust over it. A bit of pressure by palm is needed to get it tightly stuck to the clay.

This is how it should look like after last step.

If you want to make shallow ditches where you can put wheels of an airplane, so it will not unrealistically float over, now it's time while clay still can be shaped. Just place some food foil over before to protect wheels of a model from all that dirt and dust.

After everything dries (at least for 24 hours), we need at first to remove loosen sand and dust particles by soft brush.

And now we can start with painting. I prefer to use airbrush for this because it covers the surface with paint nicely. When you use brush, modelling clay tends to absorb a lot of colour into itself, so you will need to paint it multiple times. I recommend all those dusty and earth colours like Tamiya Buff, Flat Earth, Red Brown, Tan etc...

Grass was made from product sold by Model Scene company - it is available in sheets, you can just tear it to any shape you want and once again use white glue to fix it to the ground.

Edges of grass foam can be a bit sharp, so we can make them more realistic by adding some separate tufts of longer dry grass. These are also sold by Model Scene in various colours.

I enhanced small details like loose stones using additional colours by brush to create more variety and contrasts.

To give more depth to details, I used dark brown filter to wet various sections of dry earth. Filters will flow around details and add once again more contrast and diversity to the terrain.

Let it all dry during the night...

... and we're done!

Now just add some small diorama accessories like 1 piece of Rumpler, german mechanic and your little diorama is finished.

Articolo proposto da: Zdenko Bugan Scale Modelling

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