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So, I am currently re-basing my IG and have settled on the idea of a snowy trench theme.

These are the first attempts at such, my question is simple, does the inked low snow look more appropriate? I was hoping for a more "slush" effect and am considering trying it again with brown rather than black.


The planks were made with coffee stir sticks and the raised snow patches are a polymer mix that was then painted again after it dried for a more "fluffy" look.

Example with a Storm Trooper - no attempt at ink for the slushy effect.


Any advice on how to develop a more dirty snow look for around the planks or general advice on improving the effects please let me know

Looks very good as is, IMHO.

Castitas wrote:So, I am currently re-basing my IG and have settled on the idea of a snowy trench theme.

These are the first attempts at such, my question is simple, does the inked low snow look more appropriate? I was hoping for a more "slush" effect and am considering trying it again with brown rather than black.


The planks were made with coffee stir sticks and the raised snow patches are a polymer mix that was then painted again after it dried for a more "fluffy" look.

Example with a Storm Trooper - no attempt at ink for the slushy effect.


Any advice on how to develop a more dirty snow look for around the planks or general advice on improving the effects please let me know

Look around for any major military modeling magazines or books. I suggest Osprey, in particular.
They should have some better tips than I can offer, but the biggest one I can think of is this.

If you want to do a 'slush' effect, you're kind of starting off on the wrong foot.
"In the natural environment, slush forms as ice or snow melts. This often mixes with dirt and other materials, resulting in a gray or muddy brown color." Your attempt is just too...white, if that makes sense. You should look into some mud weathering powders and go from there.

Here's one i did:

Steps:

Prep:
Add some sand to a base leaving some parts of the base flat (other things such as the wire as well)
Prime White

Painting:
Dirty up the sand and other things with washes and dry brushing brown, black, tan etc (orange for rusty things)
Layer a white wash over all of the base making sure the flat parts are white and the dirtied bits are dull
Along the edges of the flat bits add in a medium to bright blue

Snow:
Blob on some modge podge (a kind of glue that dries shiny and clear/ look it up) make mounds, dont cover the whole thing
Coat the modge podge with baking soda, tip off the excess
Along the flat parts (that were edged in blue) put a layer of Modge Podge to simulate ice
any where you want to look slushy paint the podge onto the baking soda or leave it if you want it to look crystally

let dry

In a trench that people were walking on alot unless they are on one hell of a cold world the snow would turn into a slush mix of mud and snow becoming a brown color. Hurrah several years of winters in Canada. Now if the trenches are actually made out of ice then the first base would be perfect.

forget the question about snoe and trenches, I want to see that guardsman's gun!

Haha, its pretty awesome, but its just a modified scout bolt pistol. I'll post some pictures of how i modified and attached it tomorrow. Essentially though, the hand and gun were cut from the arm of a scout marine, cutting the stalk off the gun. I then cut the hand and gun off a guardsmen arm, leaving the stalk of the las gun. Using green stuff I patched the two together. The other hand was like wise a guardsmen arm with the marine "bolt gun holding hand" cut off and reattached.

I've been playing around with the idea of running a cable from the magazine back to their back packs, or running cables from the upper part of the pack to the mask to make it look like a breathing apparatus... haven't decided which yet.

For my trench bases I use strips of balsa wood and wood filler to emulate the look.. I think to have more of a trench look you need to lay the wood down so it looks like duck boards. I tried snow on my bases but couldn't get the dirty snow look that I wanted so left it off! But I hope you have better luck than me!

I do agree that mod podge is the best stuff for you in combo with other products... It's fairly cheap to! A trip to eBay should see you right.

If you want to have a look at my trench bases check out my video on my flesh tearer post.

Good luck pal!

Liam

The bases look really cool. Nice job.

Castitas wrote:Haha, its pretty awesome, but its just a modified scout bolt pistol. I'll post some pictures of how i modified and attached it tomorrow. Essentially though, the hand and gun were cut from the arm of a scout marine, cutting the stalk off the gun. I then cut the hand and gun off a guardsmen arm, leaving the stalk of the las gun. Using green stuff I patched the two together. The other hand was like wise a guardsmen arm with the marine "bolt gun holding hand" cut off and reattached.

I've been playing around with the idea of running a cable from the magazine back to their back packs, or running cables from the upper part of the pack to the mask to make it look like a breathing apparatus... haven't decided which yet.

what about combat engineer? jury rig a a welding torch and put it on one side or the other of the tank.... thats assuming he's the only guy in the squad like that.

Tamiya sell a stick of snow for weathering / texturing tank tracks and the like. I HIGHLY recommend it. Ive been using it to base all of my Dark Elves and i think you could use it to get the effect you are looking for if you used it over a brown colour or something.

The easiest way, which might not look quite right(only way to know is to try it) is to hit the snow with some devlan mud/badab black wash.

I've just been playing around with snow effects, myself, using baking soda mixed with PVA, white paint, and gloss varnish in varying amounts. Forgoing the white paint and adding more PVA and gloss than baking soda gives a very slushy, translucent mix that looks rather like melting snow. Translucent enough, I'd wager, to let some dark brown show through.

I'd try going for muddy trench basing, first, then add snow selectively over that - first with a thin spread of the slushy, translucent mix (might experiment with adding a touch of brown ink to the mix to help it run into the mud, visually), then add layers of thicker paste (more baking soda, less gloss varnish) over the centers of larger patches and on the tops of raised boards to simulate fluffier buildups of pure snow. A final gloss coat over the melting edges and muddy ground beneath should blend everything into one unpleasant (for the troops, at least), wet mess.

Awesome, thanks for all the replies, I'll have a lot of methods to try out this week. I'll hopefully have some new images up by the end of the week.