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Hey all would anyone care to share their techniques on putting snow on a base, what kind of snow (I bought some from a train hobby store), what glue you use and any other tips and tricks that I could use. I've tried to put snow on my bases but it looks like slush rather than snow :( thanks in advnaced.

Gareth

Microballons. (sometimes called techstar snowflakes)

The best and most realistic stuff you can use to flock a base for a snow effect.

http://www.librarium-online.com/2008/01/04/200/

That link is for applying blood to the snow, but it gives you an idea of how realistic and awesome it is.

Make sure you buy microballoons and not something else. Microballoons is cheap where as techstar is very expensive.

Caution, do not breathe in microballoons. Bad for your health.

Do not taunt microballoons either. poast!

Here's how I do mine

http://www.kan.org/michael/mkp/base_snow.php

The ones I've done (check out my army profiles for slaanesh daemons or emperor's children for pics) go like this:

1) Do a layer of gravel/sand/whatever for dirt as you would a normal base. Flock if you will.
2) Liberally apply watered down pva glue where you want the snow. Then dip base in woodland scenic's snow. - Let Dry.
3) Repeat step 2.
4) Paint over snow patches with watered down skull white paint
5) add any static glass bits you want as a finishing touch


It has worked well enough so far.

Alright. I struggled with snow in he exact same way as you described for a while...and all I could think was..."if only they made white glue that dried WHITE!!"
after searching and searching to no avail, I actually went with a white caulk. It can be a little thick, but a little water will make it easier to work with. So put it on, top it with snow, and let it dry. For an example of how it turned out, check my thread named 'an eclectic selection of my work' if you like the basing on the wolves, thats how it was done.

I've tried a couple of ways. found the best was to make a paste with the snow, pva and a little white paint then dab it in (similar to Ifurita's). Have also tried using it as a scatter but it comes off looking powdery. Really it's pva with white paint, the powers just for bulk.

Check out the brushthralls site--they have a couple of methods, including the ol' baking soda trick and using woodlands scenics snow (I chickened out and ended up buying that).

what I did for the tau I used to have was I mixed baking soda, water and white/pva glue together into a paste, and just plopped it onto the bases in clumps.. when it dried it look a little transparent in some parts and white in others, so it had a wet & melty snow kinda look to it. I painted on some gloss varnish after it was dry to give it a nice shine. I think the mix was something like 50% baking soda, 25% water and 25% glue

Something else you may want to consider is using some static grass then drybrushing some white on top of it for more detail.

My most sucessful snow formula works this way.

1. Spread Vinyl Spackling on the base. This is a solid white paste that looks kinda like cake frosting. You can get it at home improvement stores.
2. Sprinkle with snow "flock", woodland scenics or other brands.
3. Let dry

Its really simple and does the best "deep snow drifts" I've seen. The spackling even has enough body that you can kinda sculpt ridges and valleys in the "snow" to suggest objects under the snow or simply not put spackling on rocks and other scenic bits poking out to have them show. Definitely only good for a "Deep Winter" look, but it does that really well and really easily.

While I haven't tried it myself, the most convincing snow bases that I've seen that haven't used a special "snow" from a terrain company is baking soda - I keep meaning to use it on an army someday.

I use some modelling clay on my bases to make a contoured shape, and then paint the base Ice Blue. I then paint most of the base white, leaving a little bit of blue showing in the areas that would be shadowed or might represent exposed ice. Last, I paint glue over the whole thing and dip it in baking soda. This makes for a nice, deep-snow effect, where the snow is pure white in the highest areas but shadowed blue where it is lower.

For "Messy snow" I just mix Liquitex natural sand texture gel with some skull white and dab it on.



It's messy like it's been disturbed (and it has pine boughs and a leaf in it)

For neater drifts (I don't do that often) I actually just sculpt them and use a little snow flock on them after painting them white over ice blue.

My way of making snow is
1. base the model, in the way you want.
2. Mix baking soda with really LIGHTLY watered down Pva Glue
3. apply this to the areas you wwant it.

It gives a nice and sorta chunky effect to the snow, im from sweden and they have alot of snow up there, and from what ive seen, this way of makingthe snow looks most realistic and yeah good


Good LUck

TheThing

I don't personally care for the 'smooth snow' look that most pre-made snow agents give you.

While I know snow can (and often is) very smooth in real-life, when you're talking about a gaming piece that is viewed from a foot or more away, such large flat white surfaces tend to look very plain-jane IMHO.

So for my snow, I just put sand/gravel on the base, paint it with Space Wolves grey (which is a very blue-ish grey) and then drybrush with white. I very much like the look it gives, as from a distance the base looks textured instead of a flat white surface. Obviously you can leave patches non-snowed to make the base stand out even more if you want.

Here's an example:

Ive done a similar thing to that one with a IG Heavy bolter but my cannon has a puddle around the base (with casings in it) as the casings do get hot in real guns (hot enough to burn like a beeatch) and would melt the snow.

I used bicarb and pva and just pva for the puddle.