Ground Cover

[Railrunner130]

I'm just about finished with my first diorama. The problem I face is that the trees stick out like sore thumbs. To counter this, I plan on using ground cover.

I've tinkered with some Woodland Scenics Field Grass, but glued it to myself more than together..... Does anyone have any good techniques for utilizing field grass?

I've noticed that WS also puts out Underbrush and Bushes. Has anyone had good luck with either of those two products?

Any input would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

[Selector]

You should have the WS brush ground foam and some foliage ground foam, at least two colours. Grass is nice for lawns and cityscapes, but not for out 'on the range'. Forested areas, copses of woods, etc, have underbrush, and there is always brush and shrubs outward of any defined woodland. You'll be much happier with 'coarse foliage' as a ground cover after a light first sprinkling of two types of fine and coarse 'grass'.

[NYW&B]

Railrunner - For the most part, WS Field Grass and similar products are considered very much old school today by our better modelers. Isolated clumps of WS' horsehair-like materials used as ground cover present only a rather caricaturish representation. While quite acceptable a decade and more ago, today's modelers have found a much better approach. This is in the form of using "static grass", a much finer as compared to WS Field Grass and much more grass-like product that can be applied continuously and more homogeneously over an area to represent open patches, or fields, of grassland. The end result gives a far superior and more realistic appearance to a scene.

While some commercial static grass applicators are rather pricey, the hobbyist can easily and cheaply fabrication his own applicator. Instructions on how to do so abound on the Internet. Bottles of static grass, available in differing heights and colors (best applied as a mixture of sizes and colors), cost only a little more than ground foam and the results are far superior.

NYW&B

[Armchair]

Some of us are from the Old School.

Armchair

[steve jordan]

RR, I recently tried the WS field grass myself. A technique I tried was to lay out a strip in masking tape, then dousing it with hair spray to make it more “manageable”. After it has dried, break into clumps and use a set of hemostats to hold the clump in the center, fold it over. Then poke the tip into a glue filled hole in your base (foam, plaster, dirt) remove the tool and roughly trim off most of the excess. Not bad, but I need more practice. You would be far better off using the preformed clumps made by Citadel (miniature war gamming) or Bosh. SAJ

[Railrunner130]

Thanks guys! I actually am toying with static grass and am happy with most of the results. I'd like to find "fresher" grass and varying lengths. If anyone has suggestions where to go for that, it'd be greatly appreciated.

The main issue I'm facing is how to transition from a lawn-type environment to the unkept underbrush of trees.

[NYW&B]

As far as I am concerned the best source in the industry for all kinds of "grass" products is Scenic Express. That includes a broad selection of static grass products.

http://www.sceneryexpress.com/departments.asp?dept=1032

NYW&B