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The title pretty much says it. I went to my local hobby store looking for something suitable. Nothing was found in any of their modeling or wargaming sections. The train section had a lot of materials to replicate other terrains, but no snow. Anyone have luck painting another substrate to look like snow, or know where I can get a snow basing medium. A little bit of ice could be cool too. Thanks.

I've seen a few miniatures and basis (on this very sight) with baking-soda used to great effect.

Essentially mix it with glue to get it to the right thickness / slushiness.

Woodland Scenics soft flake snow. Wargaming snow is just the Woodland Scenics stuff repackaged at 10x the price.

Secret Weapon Miniature sell a great winter kit for fake snow.

I've used both baking soda/pva glue/white paint combo and woodland scenics snow flock (can see pics of bases in my gallery) to great effect. They both have different looks and I use a combination of them

 morganfreeman wrote:
I've seen a few miniatures and basis (on this very sight) with baking-soda used to great effect.

Essentially mix it with glue to get it to the right thickness / slushiness.

I was going to suggest this. And here I thought I was the only one.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
As far as hobby supplied snow. I've tried GW's and GF9's. I preferred the GF9 snow product.

Citadel also makes a Snow box, that's the same white sugar-looking material as the Woodland Scenics. It's not expensive (I think about $7), but I've never tried it.

The most realistic way to do snow is with crushed glass, which you can get at Secret Weapon Miniatures. But be careful, because well... it's crushed glass

As it happens, my friend has just made a blog post on his snowbases, so you might find something useful in there!

http://alasdhairmm.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/tutorial-snow-bases.html

Thanks! I'll have to check these out.

 Erik_Morkai wrote:
Secret Weapon Miniature sell a great winter kit for fake snow.

i have this kit, and i really like it...
the two grasses are good, as is the fine grit sand...

the snow is awesome!!!
way better than my GW white flock...

it also comes with a bottle of water effects, which is the other half of the reason i bought it...
i still have to try the water out, but i haven't had a base where i needed it yet...

cheers
jah

http://fromthewarp.blogspot.com/2010/01/details-8-ways-to-base-with-snow.html

From the Warp is an excellent modeling blog. He covers 8 ways to base with snow, giving very different looks (slush, snow, mixed), so you can choose what effect you want to get

Another vote for Woodland Scenics. I've been told by modellers who have been doing it for many years that PVA+baking soda will eventually yellow so don't use it if you want something that will last.

One thing I still haven't figured out is how to make a nice looking fresh snow, that soft powdery looking stuff. I can make a nice looking melting snow with Woodland Scenics Soft Flake Snow + Water effects... but I still haven't figured out how to do something that looks like freshly fallen snow, at least not at the scale of my 28mm models.

 Erik_Morkai wrote:
Secret Weapon Miniature sell a great winter kit for fake snow.

The Secret Weapon stuff is just Woodland Scenics snow and water repackaged and massively increased in price. Just buy it direct from the source and get enough to put snow on multiple armies for the price of a single tiny bag in the winter kit.

Talys wrote:
Citadel also makes a Snow box, that's the same white sugar-looking material as the Woodland Scenics. It's not expensive (I think about $7), but I've never tried it.

That's incredibly expensive. You could pay $7 for a tiny box of Woodland Scenics snow with a Citadel logo on it, or you could pay $10-15 for many times that amount: http://woodlandscenics.woodlandscenics.com/show/category/SoftFlakeSnow

For mine I use a load of battlefield terrain snow. £3 for a decent amount then mix it with plenty of pva glue.

I then brush this onto the base as deep as I want then dip the model into the box to get that powdery snow on top.

Never cared too much for crushed glass. The look is OK - the material scares me more than most things (and if you have followed my post history...I don't scare easily when it comes to...anything hobby related). The sparkle is easily achieved with less dangerous materials like glass microballoons and they are less likely to get clogged in your lungs, under your skin, in your eyes or otherwise screw up your day (and microballoons are cheap-cheap).

Woodland Scenics is pretty good for snow, inert and safe to work with. Does more of a two day old snow though as opposed to fresh snow. You can increase the powder look by "building" up layers of it though - adhesive, snow, spray adhesive (thinned varnish in a squirt bottle), snow, spray varnish, snow.... Lightly dust - otherwise the liquid will compact the layer below...and it looks like old snow. Top off with microballons in order to give it some sparkle and shine.

For the best looking fresh powder look - spray snow (Model Mates is a good one...but difficult to get in the US, more difficult as shipping regulations become more onerous - Design Masters is easier to get here, but not quite as fluffy). Very fluffy and fresh snow looking. Fairly hard to control (when you only want a little snow in specific spots). Don't touch. It is soft, and although I use it on some miniatures - mostly I use it on scenery (trees, buildings...) and I make sure to design them so I can grab them easily without grabbing the snow covered areas. Just like real snow - if you grab it, it compacts.

I've done the baking soda and baking powder thing before. They look the part for a bit - but the structure of the material makes it prone to absorbing atmospheric garbage. This often will lead to a yellowing. Cleaner environs may not notice the effect, while others can see the yellowing really fast (I had a display near our kitchen and the oils from frying and bacon grease turned it yellow pretty quickly...). Glass (crushed or microballons) and most the commercially available snow products do not have that same issue (spray snow does though).

Technique is really the big thing. I have seen some really well done snow bases using nothing but putty and paint. Depending on what type of snow you want and how you apply it you can make it look good without the added materials. I've also seen some really poorly done snow jobs using high dollar materials - like they had never even seen a picture of snow.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Erik_Morkai wrote:
Secret Weapon Miniature sell a great winter kit for fake snow.

The Secret Weapon stuff is just Woodland Scenics snow and water repackaged and massively increased in price. Just buy it direct from the source and get enough to put snow on multiple armies for the price of a single tiny bag in the winter kit.

Talys wrote:
Citadel also makes a Snow box, that's the same white sugar-looking material as the Woodland Scenics. It's not expensive (I think about $7), but I've never tried it.

That's incredibly expensive. You could pay $7 for a tiny box of Woodland Scenics snow with a Citadel logo on it, or you could pay $10-15 for many times that amount: http://woodlandscenics.woodlandscenics.com/show/category/SoftFlakeSnow

personally, i didn't find the Secret Weapon kit to be too expensive, and it comes with everything in one kit to do what i need:

awesome snow
water effect
fine ballast
tall grass
short grass
pva glue

i don't like to buy things in bulk because i travel and move a lot...
not only that, but i've used snow on exactly two models in the last five years...
even that small tub of GW snow is way too big (and it looks horrible on the base, unfortunately)...
so, yeah, to each their own...
the Secret Weapon kit is perfect for me...

cheers
jah