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Painted a few of my guardsmen a desert kaki camo but I didn't have fine model sand. So looked around and found some old course sand in the shed. Do you guys think it will work of should I get myself some higher quality sand.

I think it looks fine, don't have to have very fine sand, unless it really really bothers you. There are different looks in deserts anyway.

I like it more coarse. It looks more alien than what we're used to seeing.

mix it with pva glue first then apply it.

 Jazzlo wrote:
Painted a few of my guardsmen a desert kaki camo but I didn't have fine model sand. So looked around and found some old course sand in the shed. Do you guys think it will work of should I get myself some higher quality sand.

Have you baked it? If it was sitting in the shed it might have quite a lot of moisture in there which may make it a bit weird when you apply it to the base.

Most of the time you glue sand on with water based glue.......

Yeah the clumpyness and lack of sticking is probably form moister.

You're gonna want the sand to dry out to make it work better for this. Maybe lay it out in a very thin layer in a box on a window sill to let it get dried out by the sun.

I use pre-bagged playpit sand. Fine, clean and cheap.

I put sand or soil in the oven for about one hour at 150 degree to sterilise it. You can then use a sieve and make different grades of sand. If your source soil is the right colour, you don't even have to paint it. I did this with the base and floor below and used different shades of soil/sand and I think it looks better than the usual drybrush:

It looks ok for something like grand canyon. but not for a sand dunes style base.

(which i think is cool. add some small cacti and dry colored grass and i think it would be super cool since no one does that)

if you are going for dune style i would of just used the highlight color as the base and the dry brushed it further with white or a super light beige.