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I am looking to do forest bases with something to simulate miniature pinestraw (dead needles from evergreen trees). I tried orangey/brown 3mm fake grass, but it doesnt look that good IMO. Any ideas?

 Dranu wrote:
I am looking to do forest bases with something to simulate miniature pinestraw (dead needles from evergreen trees). I tried orangey/brown 3mm fake grass, but it doesnt look that good IMO. Any ideas?

Have you tried sawdust or dill weed? Not all sawdust will do, but you'd need stuff that is long and thin. Dill weed would be more consistent, but it would be more expensive as you'd buy it from the spice section of your local grocery store.

Dried Thyme wouldn't be a million miles off in size either, and your army would smell fantastic

I am thinking coconut fibers possibly?

 Dranu wrote:
I am thinking coconut fibers possibly?

But wouldn't you have to chop it fine? Dried dill weed is already in small pieces, as is thyme.

https://www.building-your-model-railroad.com/model-trees.html Suggests using static grass when on a tree. If you could get some light brown static grass, and provided you don't use it anywhere else on your bases, I guess that would work for pine straw.

I was able to get decent looking pine straw with jute garden twine from the hardware store. I unravelled the strands, dyed it with artist ink (FW burnt umber), then cut off very short lengths with scissors. It took a while, but the effect worked pretty well. Haven't used it for scenery yet, though. I used the same process with different inks for dried grass.

 NephMakes wrote:
I was able to get decent looking pine straw with jute garden twine from the hardware store. I unravelled the strands, dyed it with artist ink (FW burnt umber), then cut off very short lengths with scissors. It took a while, but the effect worked pretty well. Haven't used it for scenery yet, though. I used the same process with different inks for dried grass.

This sounds like a PERFECT idea after looking at some of that stuff, thank you. I was also looking at synthetic fibers on a brush and think that might work too.