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I've been investigating ways of making burnt bushes to put on ash world bases for a chaos army.

I tried painting with acrylics, but that was rather tedious and they got brittle after drying.

Spraypainting lichens black didn't work out that well, they got rather brittle as well.

I then soaked a new batch with a thinned down blend of elmers glue, black and some white paint, which didn't darken them enough, and after drying, they got brittle also.

So is there a way of making them less brittle (the hobby shops owners advise was not to touch them) so they survive gaming, and turn them black. I was thinking of soaking them with fountain pen black ink, but I don't know.

Or are there any other alternative materials? All I want is to put some small (maybe 5 to 7mm) burnt bushes on bases.

Get the dark brown reindeer moss, and give it a brush with soot pigment powder, before a very gentle misting of matt varnish to fix it.

That sounds good, thanks for the tip. I think I might have to stock up on soot powder later since I don't have it available within buying distance.

Instead, I went to the campus store and got black fountain pen ink, which I thinned down and then soaked the lichens twice. Now they are decently black but still have a bit of a color variation, which I like. They also got stiffened through the last ink coating. I think I might drybrush them a little with a lighter grey once they are mounted on the bases

The ink I used, it cost about $5.00

After soaking with 1:8 thinned ink


After drying of a second soaking with 1:4 thinned ink and drying over night, with, and without flash.

I was going to advise using pigments, as well, but that looks pretty good. Surprisingly matte and dusty, as the pigments would have been.

Yes, I was rather happy that it turned out decently.

Now I "just" have to unsprue,assemble and paint the models and the bases