Continuing with our running tutorials on Basing, this week we're going to give you some very basic tips on how to use Static Grass. This tutorial builds off of what we've learned from the Basic Basing tip. The addition of Static Grass to your basing really adds a lot of character to your models with minimal effort. There are a lot of different colors of static grasses out there, and it's up to you to find the static grass that best suits the look you are going for.
For this tutorial I've used GF9's Arid Static Grass
to give my Sons of Medusa a dry southwestern desert look.Step One:
To start you'll need to dab some white glue
onto your base in random fashion like in the photo. The amount of coverage is up to you, but for me, a little bit goes a long way.Step Two:
When I'm putting static grass on the base, I tend to cover the entire base to cover any and all glue. Use tweezers
to pick up clumps of grass and drop it on the base. Doing this over your container is always best so you can save any excess grass for future projects!Step Three:
After shaking off the excess into the container, flip your model upside down and blow away loose grass. This knocks out two birds with one stone by both getting rid of the loose grass and helping to stand the static grass up even more in a more natural manner.
Step Four:
Now just let it dry! You really don't want to mess with it too much at this point. You can however clean up the rim some as you will notice some stray grass hanging over the edge.
Again, this is just building upon our basing knowledge up to this point. If you haven't read our Basic Basing tip, be sure you check it out. And if you're feeling up to it, try out our more advanced Snow Basing tip. For even more variety in your basing, you could mix all three of our basing tips!
So how about it folks, what other good tips for static grasses do you have?
I was always told to put a huge pile of it (way more than you need on the little spot of glue and then press down.
ReplyDeleteWait a second and then shake the rest off and you'll end up with your grass "standing up." I don't know how it works but it does for me.
On a side note, you better send me links to these so I can add them to the archive, I know you have a ton more of these great tips hidden away and there's a lot of people who would benefit from them.
Excellent post. I never would have thought to turn the model upside down. I've always done it just how Ron said.
ReplyDeleteI just tried static grass last weekend and I think I followed this method. A couple questions though to help:
ReplyDeleteDo you blow on it while holding it upside down, or right side up?
Do you clear coat it first, or wait until you're happy with the way the grass looks?
Thanks!
I've never worked with the stuff before, but you've got me curious to try. I've got the same question as the other Kevin, however: should the figure get it's protective coat first, or can this wait until after the grass is in-place & dry?
ReplyDeleteOnce I have my grass on, I'll flip the model over and tap on the bottom... flip it upright and blow off the excess. If it gonna stay, it will stay.
ReplyDeleteI do all this AFTER I varnish my model though.
Wow, lots of response!
ReplyDeleteLike Ron has said already, you probably want to avoid spraying the static grass with varnish, so do this after it has been done.
I tend to blow away excess while it's upside down. But experimentation is usually the key in all of these, try different methods!
I found a protip recently on a GW tutorial and they mentioned using superglue/hobbyglue rather than PVA. I tried it out and it works great! Dries instantly, clear and with no additional mess. You might want to give that a shot.
ReplyDelete