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Friday Quick Tip: Static Grass
By: grey_death



Continuing with our running tutorials on Basing, this week we're going to give you some very basic tips on how to use Static Grass. This tutorial builds off of what we've learned from the Basic Basing tip. The addition of Static Grass to your basing really adds a lot of character to your models with minimal effort. There are a lot of different colors of static grasses out there, and it's up to you to find the static grass that best suits the look you are going for.

For this tutorial I've used GaleForce Nine's Arid Static Grass to give my Sons of Medusa a dry southwestern desert look.

Step One:



To start you'll need to dab some PVA glue onto your base in random fashion like in the photo. The amount of coverage is up to you, but for me, a little bit goes a long way.

Step Two:



When I'm putting static grass on the base, I tend to cover the entire base to cover any and all glue. Use tweezers to pick up clumps of grass and drop it on the base. Doing this over your container is always best so you can save any excess grass for future projects!

Step Three:



After shaking off the excess into the container, flip your model upside down and blow away loose grass. This knocks out two birds with one stone by both getting rid of the loose grass and helping to stand the static grass up even more in a more natural manner.

Step Four:



Now just let it dry! You really don't want to mess with it too much at this point. You can however clean up the rim some as you will notice some stray grass hanging over the edge.

Again, this is just building upon our basing knowledge up to this point. If you haven't read our Basic Basing tip, be sure you check it out. And if you're feeling up to it, try out our more advanced Snow Basing tip. For even more variety in your basing, you could mix all three of our basing tips!

So how about it folks, what other good tips for static grasses do you have?

I've heard that some people get really good results using static electricity to stand up the grass. A balloon, or special applicator are the usual suggestions for this.

Well, that's where the word static in static grass comes from.

As a note, you should also take an old brush and drybrush another color onto the static grass to make it more lifelike.

What I usually do is put a small dab of super glue where I want the grass, and then drop the static grass onto the area with a pair of tweezers. I then blow off the excess, and in the process, blowing on it makes the grass stand straighter, and looks more natural.

As I've seen may a person do, make sure your face isn't in line with the tub of static grass when you blow.....

mattyboy22 wrote:As I've seen may a person do, make sure your face isn't in line with the tub of static grass when you blow.....

Lol. Static grass nose hair if you aren't careful, trust me glue gets EVERYWHERE whether you notice or not.

Grey Death:

Do you apply straight PVA glue from the bottle or do you water it down a little?

wyomingfox wrote:Grey Death:

Do you apply straight PVA glue from the bottle or do you water it down a little?

I usually have a wet brush and that's about it for the water, just enough to make the glue workable for me.

How can i make the static grass a red colour any one know??? Im going for a deadric wasteland (eldar scrolls Oblivion) kind of look.

pj-brainz wrote:How can i make the static grass a red colour any one know??? Im going for a deadric wasteland (eldar scrolls Oblivion) kind of look.

Using washes on a light colored grass seems your best bet. Outside of buying red static grass :p.

Yeah cant find ANY red grass anywhere, I was thinking Burnt grass and drybrushing red till i get the right result...or do you think a light grass like say dead grass and doing what you said with the washing would have a better outcome. It will save me a few quid if i dont have to buy both, Lol

Using a wash might give a more natural look. But really it's going to come down to experimentation.

Do you guys seal the grass afterwards? Does it give the grass a more robust quality?

Yeah i think ill get both and try a bit of experimentation cheers for the info mate

DISCIPLE_SoC wrote:Do you guys seal the grass afterwards? Does it give the grass a more robust quality?

I always clear coat before adding any grass effects, static grass or otherwise. I'm concerned that the clear coat will string up on any stray hairs (which is what the grass is made from, usually yak or goat) and ruin a good paintjob, so I add grass after sealing. Anyone else have experience sealing after applying grass to a model?

I've tried to use this technique and with limited sucess as it never seemed to sit right and didn't look real but I found Silflor grass tufts. Really cool stuff and you get loads of tufts in a neat plastic container. Tweezers a wee drop of evo-stick and you're done.

http://www.internationalmodels.net/acatalog/Grass_Tufs__Strips.html

Those are very awesome, Elmodiddly, thanks for the tip.

Oops! Wrong link.

This is where I got mine from, the 4mm stuff works well for scale http://www.antenocitisworkshop.com/gbu0-catshow/silflortuftssmall.html

My Dreadnought in gallery has it applied.

Gavin Thorne wrote:

DISCIPLE_SoC wrote:Do you guys seal the grass afterwards? Does it give the grass a more robust quality?

I always clear coat before adding any grass effects, static grass or otherwise. I'm concerned that the clear coat will string up on any stray hairs (which is what the grass is made from, usually yak or goat) and ruin a good paintjob, so I add grass after sealing. Anyone else have experience sealing after applying grass to a model?

It tends to blow the grass off of where you applied it and it sticks to the model.

It's a real pain picking pieces off from under a clear coat. It makes the model look like it's been rolling around in wet grass.

pj-brainz wrote:Yeah cant find ANY red grass anywhere, I was thinking Burnt grass and drybrushing red till i get the right result...or do you think a light grass like say dead grass and doing what you said with the washing would have a better outcome. It will save me a few quid if i dont have to buy both, Lol

I haven't tried it, so this is just my guess, but I would think that a red drybrush over a darker grass would look quite good as the tips would look more red, but the bottoms would seem dark like they didn't get as much sunlight.

cool, appreciate the tips

Here is my tip: don't use the GW static grass named "grass", on you dingy looking figures. It is horribly bright, and will make your Nurglings that you just painted look bad.

_Tim?