LongGrass SBS

[Gordon Ferguson]

Well as I was asked by a few people, well one and few sort of half heartedly enquired   how the grass was done on the Derelict Truck  (www.finescalerr.com/smf/index.php?topic=1993.0) here is a small SBS on the process.

Don't think there is anything new here, the model RR guys have been doing it this way for a lot of years but here is my take on it.

First tools & paint

 

Nothing complicated, the funny brush thing top left is my cats brush with the short steel teeth I found ideal for combing out the stained fur, the curved nail scissors come in useful towards the end of the process. The Vallejo is used to stain the material at the beginning ....... any acrylic will do and the colour is not critical, you choose any grass colour you like ...... on the Derelict Truck I used Olive Drab.



This is the base material for the grass, artificial fur; in this case I got it from Treemendus (www.treemendusmodels.co.uk)  as I found that the colour variations already in the fur proved useful.



After dying, I just applied a 1 part acrylic to 4 parts water, various books refer to misting with "wet" water but I did not find that necessary for this small area. I ended up rubbing the colour in with my fingers; just make sure that you work the colour all the way through so that the base material is also stained.
Using the cat's brush a couple of minutes brushing soon worked out the tugs, this also help to remove any loose fibres.



Treemendus do suggest in most cases cutting the "grass" off the base material but I found for what I was trying to achieve it was better left on. That does give you the issue of making sure that this base material is well disguised/covered up, in this case I just made sure that when I stuck it down the base was below the edges of my highly sophisticated base........ It was stuck down with PVA glue.



This is the early stages of trimming the grass, I think one of the key things in trying to achieve a realistic look is NOT to cut the grass with the scissors parallel to the base, steeply angle the scissors down and cut/trim at random to provide variation in height .

After the initial trimming I added some colour variations using the Tamiya paints shown above sprayed in a random fashion down into the grass, so that it was coloured all the way down to the base. Finally I also lightly sprayed the tops of the grass with the light colour.



Final trimming, this what I mean about the angle of cut, and for this piece I added some fence posts, these are meant to represent 4 foot  fence posts in 1/35 scale, along the line where I sprayed some of the darker green.





At this stage I decided that I would add an old pallet and rusty barrel which Anders Malmberg had very kindly sent me last year, so using the nail scissors I cut away the grass where the pallet would sit. The curved blades of these scissors are useful in getting a nice flat bottom to this depression and finally I sprayed this depression with some of the dark green to provide a shadow /damp area.



Final shots show pallet and barrel in place , thanks Anders , grass given final comb and my pet hate ....  as many of the horizontal strands removed as I could find  with tweezers and some longer strands of grass (Woodlands Scenics) added just to added a little more variation.

[lab-dad]

That was very informative and looks darn nice too!
I love the "base"!
-Marty

[Chuck Doan]

Thank you Gordon, at first I thought you were using cat fur! No, a cat fur BRUSH. 
This look quite good. I may consider it for my current project.

[finescalerr]

Maybe not an original idea but a step-by-step worth saving. -- Russ

[Hauk]

Thanks a lot!

[Ray Dunakin]

Great step-by-step!

[Wesleybeks]

Freaking fantastic.

Thanks

[marc_reusser]

Splendid SBS!...and lovely little scene. Thanks!

...but for crissake, you have to paint that base black...you're not Donald Trump.


Marc

[Gordon Ferguson]

you won't be saying that when me and my hair fly into Germany next year on the 'ol private jet 

[Junior]

Great SBS and awesome work as usual BUT that crappy pallet.....is it Lego? 

Anders

P.S. Sorry for my absence for a while, have been real busy working on a classic 1/1 British Café Racer.

[Hauk]

...but for crissake, you have to paint that base black...you're not Donald Trump.

Speaking of Trump, you should be able to make a decent diorama using this tutorial and his toupee!

[shropshire lad]

Great SBS and awesome work as usual BUT that crappy pallet.....is it Lego? 

Anders

  Yeah , I agree . Who ever made that pallet ought to be made to surrender all of his so called models to the quality control police ( me) for disposal into my safe keeping .

   Nick

[chester]

Nice sbs Gordon, thanks. Terrific results.