Scenic Stuff

After a recent discussion on The Miniatures Page about sand and other texturing materials that people use on their bases and terrain I took a look at my shelf and found the following.


1 & 2: Builders sand. My wife bought me a burst bag of Sharp Sand out of B&Qs reject pile for 10p. I split it into two by putting it through a kitchen seive to get fine sand (1) and larger gravel (2). Field trials are underway - it's hard to argue at that price. The only cheaper stuff comes from the beach, but it smells a bit and is full of small bits of organic material like seaweed and dead fish.

3: A mix of Woodland Scenics ballast Fine Brown and Coarse Brown. This was attempt to emulate Games Workshops Modelling Sand as detailed here and it works quite well at about one third the price.

4: Superfine Bird Sand from the Pet Supermarket. Being superfine this stuff works really well for basing 5mm troops.

5: Games Workshop Modelling Gravel: £4 for a small tub. Now why did I buy this stuff?

6 & 7: Two grades of Woodland Scenics Talus

8: Woodland Scenics Ballast Fine Brown.

9: Woodland Scenics Ballast Coarse Brown.

10: Unknown Model Railway Ballast

11: Woodland Scenics Ballast Fine Buff.

12: Woodland Scenics Ballast Coarse Buff

13: Games Workshop Modelling Sand. Again £4 for a tub. Why? Well it's an excellent mix of sizes that makes really rather good bases. But it is far too expensive.

Sad, isn't it?