This tutorial is on how to create tall grass from 3 Ply Jute (aka Yute) from Darice Craft Designer (TM). I purchased this either at Michaels or JoAnn Fabrics. It’s been a while and frankly I can’t recall where it was. All I know is that it was cheap and I didn’t buy it for modeling purposes, but for a Halloween costume.

First you’ll want to cut some 3″ pieces of the Jute and soak them in a grass-green wash of cheap acrylics (Apple Barrel, Liquitex, Americana, etc…) thinned with water. Soak for a minute or 2 then dry on some paper towels which will draw away the excess. This will give you green fibers later on.

Now take a 3″ strand of the raw Jute and fray it out with a wire brush. Without removing the fibers from the brush split 1 of the 3-ply cords from the green Jute and fray that out. You’ll now have two potential bunches of grass. One neat bunch and one from the frayed brush-stuck material.

Take the brush mass and give it a few pulls to get it straightened out into more of a strand. Set aside. Take the green and natural “neat” strands and pull them together to make a second strand. See below:

Now fold each strand in half and using scissors, trim the bottom to be flat. You’ll have two clumps of grass now ready to be glued to the groundwork. The neat is good for the middle of a grassy area where the messy brush-gathered clumps work best as borders.

Hold a clump of grass in your hand and apply white glue to the flat trimmed underside. Press this onto the base and use some tweezers to pull the clump apart and slide it around a bit so that you don’t have a badhair plug-look, but a more natural random setting. Add the next clump as above and let dry.

Once dry you can tease the grass and blend it into the adjacent clumps. You can also use scisors to trim longer straglers too. Mash down a little grass where it meats trails or the edge to hide the glued-down “roots” and to create a nicer more natural edge.

Below is this grass applied to the base for my KV-X2. You can use different lengths of clumps to get a nice random and natural effect. Be sure to blend the clumps together to avoid the bad hairplug look.

^Above: Jute grass used in conjunction with Silflor grass and other natural materials to create a natural, random look. In that scene, far less natural colored Jute was used since it was for spring/summer.

^ Above: Jute grass as shown in this tutorial applied by itself for a grassy brush-strewn field in winter.

I had already started the groundwork for my KV-X2 when Maschinen Kreuger posted his great tutorial on making groundwork with textured gel medium and trees. I loved his tutorial and ended up integrating some of his techniques into this build. I made some changes such as starting with Celluclay (I bought a HUGE brick of it a while back and need to use it up eventually) which he really dislikes. Anyway, this tutorial is not to step on his toes, but to show his methods used a slightly different way for those of us using Celluclay.

Start by finding a good supporting base to work on such as a finished wooded plaque, scrap wood to be later finished with a basswood outer wall , or as in this example the bottom of an Italian Ice container. If you’ll be creating a sloped or tiered/stepped surface, create that first using foam, wood, balls of foil or whatever. The idea it to try and get as much of the basic shape down BEFORE applying the Celluclay since you’ll want to apply the Celluclay as thin as possible.

To mix your Celluclay for groundwork, start by throwing out the instructions. We’ll be mixing in a few things and using less water. First take a clump of dry Celluclay from the bag and place it into a container. Next drizzle some white glue on top of that like icing on a cinnamon roll. The glue will help it stick to the base better and help prevent warpage later. Next get a cup of water and mix in a little dish soap. Add just enough water to the mix to make it clay like. Less water will help it dry faster which in turn will prevent warpage later.

Once mixed, apply in as thin as possible onto your base. Try to apply it no thicker than 5-10mm. Use wet fingers to smooth it as flat as possible. The Celluclay will still go on lumpy which is desirable, but you want to avoid peaks. Now sprinkle the surface with small rocks and grit (sand, crushed talus) and press it in with wet fingers. Now take a 1″ paintbrush and wet it. Stipple the surface of the groundwork creating a pocked texture and further blending in the rocks and grit. This works the celluclay into the base and helps in drying. Place in a warm spot or in front of a fan to dry. The faster it dries, the less likely it’ll warp or crack.

Next up we prime the base. I used a dark gray Krylon primer.

When the primer is cured, airbrush the base with Polyscale Dirt paint thinned with a little water.

Now we take some acrylics and paint some of the rocks in various grays.

Then again we give it a spray of the Polyscale Dirt. Spray in very thinly just to tie in the rocks with the groundcolor. Rocks are dirty afterall!

After that is dry I dusted the surface with some MIG Pigment > Russian Earth. This darker color is to help simulate wet soil. If your soil is to be dry or even sandy, lighter pigments can be used.

Now we drill a small hole and glue in some dried dead roots from the backyard or dead dried plants. This is to simulate leafless brush.

Next we apply some grass made from Yute (Jute) twine. My next entry will be on creating grass with this material.

To help make the soil look moist and to add a little more variance in the tones I thinned some black oil paint and worked it into the visible dirt which was first wet with a little thinner. Blend this in good and apply it randomly. Note the difference between the above and below images.

Now we can stop here OR we can continue and apply some light snow. Let’s do a little snow! First take some Prepared Matte Medium(matte medium thinned with water) and airbrush it all over the top of your base. You want to spray straight down (impossible so tilt you base instead!) and get it damp. Don’t overdo it and soak it. Immediately sift a little baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) straight down over the damp surface and let dry completely. You’ll want snow on the top of the brush, but not clinging to the underside. That’s unnatural! For a light, windblown snow sift unevenly over the surface. This will let some of your earth show through.

Once dry, tip it upside down and tap off the excess powder. I didn’t like how much snow gathered on the grass. I wanted it to look a little more windswept and moving/blown grass wouldn’t collect much snow. So I took a brush and brushed around the grass to dust off the excess powder. To create the footprints I took a damp brush and swept it away in the footprint shapes.

This can be modified and further combined with Maschinen Kreuger and other techniques. Check the Help > Dioramas section of my forum for more! Below is the base for my KV-X2 done up to the point right before applying snow. Once I apply snow, I’ll add an image to this post.

My article for Patrol in the Debris Field, my Zero-G dual MaK Fireball SG diorama will be in the latest release of Modelář. As usual it’s in the Czech language, but still a great magazine with a LOT of talented contributors. Here’s the layouts of my pages as well as the cover of this issue.

I’m pretty excited to have made the cover and to get a 10-page spread. I recreated my wallpaper image as requested by the editor in a larger scale suitable for print. Anyway, even if you don’t read Czech, check out the mag as it’s got a lot of wonderful build-ups!

Went to the Washington County Humane Society today and got a new addition to our family. Pixie Puff! A little 10 week old calico kitten. Very cute and playful. Riley and Lanie love her already, but Pixie’s not to sure about Lanie just yet. “kiddy…” whap whap wahp. The whapping is supposed to be petting however but Lanie is a little heavy handed at the moment.

The other two cats haven’t noticed the new arrival yet. Peepers will be delighted as she needs/misses a friend since Priscilla died and Zoey hates all.

Here’s the new arrival:

EDIT: Here’s a few more… this is after Pixie spending an hour sleeping under my chin on the couch. A full bladder later and I handed the sleepy thing off to Riley.

Every once in a while I decide to take a lot of step-by-step photos and make a tutorial out of them. I figured that this small jeep kit from the Gundam UC Hard Graph line would be a great piece to test out some techniques and write about the armor painting techniques I’ve picked up. So let’s get started!

1: First up of course is the pre-building of the kit. In the stage you cut, sand, and figure out how everything fits together, what will need masked, and what can be glued to start. Once done, parts can be attached to skewers and whatnot to hold them during the painting processes.

2: Primed jeep via airbrush with Mr Surfacer 1000 thinned with lacquer thinner and a few drops of Mr. Retarder Mild.

3: Sprayed jeep with gray then random swaths of Nato brown and a rust mixture. All Tamiya Acrylics. Later this will show through as random rust and primer coats under paint chips.

4: Clear-coated and sealed jeep with Future Floor Acrylic (FFA) thinned 50% with Tamiya Thinner.

5: 24 hours later 3 thin coats of hairspray (hair lacquer) were applied.

6: Jeep was sprayed with Olive green then parts were highlighted with JGSDF Olive Green which is a little lighter.

7: A few hours later, using clean water, various brushes were used to wet the model and loosen the water-soluable hairspray undercoat. This makes the topcoat of greens unstable temporarily so that they can realistically be chipped away with the wet brushes. Other implements (toothpicks, styrene card shards) can be used on the unstable surfaces to create line-scratches. Larger areas of paint can be removed as well as I did on the fenders. Remove as littler or as much as you want.

8: Now that the chipping is done, it’s time for decals. Normally I would coat the whole kit in gloss Future Floor Acrylic. This time however I just brushed a few thin coats where the decals would end up. Note the gloss on the front fenders.

9: Decals were applied and tools, dashboard, seat cushions, and other hand-paint-necessary bits have been painted. Mirrors and lights were painted with silver. Later clear Tamiya was applied where necessary based on the light color.

10: Now a satin coat of FFA was applied. This seals the topcoat from firther chipping attempts, accidental or not and seals the surface for the solvent-based weathering apps.

11: Next up, three applications of filters have been applied to all the jeep parts. Filters are kind of like a wash, but not really… they’re hard to explain, but add a lot to the depth of a model. For this filter I mixed up a pale blue-green oil-paint mix with some turpenoid. This alters the color slightly and blends colors together between the various colored parts. It also “seasons” or tooths the surface slightly for the next step, discoloration. Note also as I go, more and more of the jeep gets put together. This is based on what needed painted when and with minimal masking.

12: Once the filters have dried/cured for 24 hours, it’s time for the discoloration. This technique involves applying small dabs of various oil colors then blending them in with a thinner dampened brush. This gives the surface more variation in color and a more realistic and deep appearance.

13: After the discoloration has dried, about 24 hours, a wash is applied. This wash is a mix of oil paint to a dirt-color then thinned with turpenoid. This thin wash is applied to the whole vehicle and all external parts such as wheels, seats, etc… While it’s drying you might notice pools or water (thinner)-lines. These can be blended out with a stuff soft brush before the wash fully cures. Another 24 hours.

14: Next up is pre-dusting with the airbrush. For this I’ve mixed Tamiya Flat Earth with Flattened FFA to make a semi-transparent dirt-mix. This is sprayed in very light mistings where larger amounts of dust would collect. Side skirts, underside, and the rear pannel. More specific dusting effects will be added next with pgment powders.

15: The windshield was masked off where the window wipers would hit. Then the windshield was lightly sprayed with my Tamiya Flat Earth + Flat FFA mix.

16: The tires were painted in flat black then had a satin finish applied. Pigments were dusted onto the wheels and then rubbed off with rubber gloves. This removes all the pigment except for what’s around raised edges and in the treads. A little bit of pigments were then brushed around the road-hitting edge of the tire since it’s been running on a dirt road and would pick that dirt up.

17: The machine gun was painted in flat black and given a flattened FFA coat. Powdered graphite was rubbed over the weapon to give it its gunmetal sheen. After it was attached to the jeep it had just a little disty pigment applied since the weapon would generally be removed and kept very clean and maintained.

18: Pigment powders were applied dry with various brushes. Thinner was applied to these dry pigments to affix them to the surface better. The end result is still fragile and should not be handled much, especially not with bare hands as that could leave fingerprints in the finish. The underside and rear panel recieved a lot of pigment, while the rest just got dust added in specific places. A little powdered graphite was rubbed onto the floor grates and sides where the crews feet would rub/polish the surface.

19: And that’s pretty much it. Different colors and conditions would call for different pigments but these techniques can work for just about any armor/robot subject. I hope they can help you and as for me, this tutorial will help me remember what I did for next time!

After creating my Gone Fishing article for Czech Republic based magazine Modelář, I was asked to write a new short piece. Since the magazine focuses on military modeling, many of their readers don’t know what this crazy Gundam thing is all about. So this article describes in brief, what Gundam is and what kinds of models are available. As usual, it’s been translated into the Czech language, but I’m not allowed to post a large image anyway. They did send me one to scale down for the site though to show what they did with it. Here’s the spread:

As I gain experience in this hobby I find myself trying more and more to recreate nature in various scales. This involves plenty of research on modeling materials and real life examples/images. For my current project I’d like to place some moss and lichen on some rocks. Just a small amount, but it’s become a big learning process. As usual I went in search of examples and such done by other modelers to see the good and bad and learn from it. I didn’t find a whole lot aside from people using the ground up foam or real moss… neither of which looked like what I wanted, but the real moss looked to make some nice additional greenery.

For this article, I’ll avoid my trial and error processes and focus on the technique I stumbled upon while mixing various concoctions. You’ll need the following supplies for this method:

• Model car interior flocking (gray)
• Baking Soda
• Cheap-O acrylics
• Black India Ink

I started off my making some rocks using the Woodland Scenics rock molds and plaster of paris. These rocks were gived a few washes with diluted black india ink and a wash of russian earth MIG pigment for a little color.

Next it was time to add the lichen. Lichen often appear as pale white/blue/green plants on the surface of rocks. They look a little like mold in some of the images. To recreate this I applied random layers of white, gray and pale sage green acrylic with a small piece of sponge.

Now it’s time to make the moss. You start by mixing equal parts of baking soda and flocking. Then you add just enough green acrylic paint to make a thin paste about the consistency of white glue. Add a little ink to this for a deeper/less saturated color.

This mixture can be applied two ways. First I took the same soft brush I mixed it with and dabbed in on thinly in spots. This gives you a light covering. I then took a toothpick and applied small glops of the moss mix on the tops of the rocks and over the thin areas. This gives you the thicker heavier moss look. The mix will look a little solid, but this is where the magic of the baking soda happens. Originally I added the baking soda and no flocking. The BS was just for bulk. That happened while drying however is small gas bubbles forming adding texture. With the addition of the flocking the texture went from bubbly to fluffy in a scale moss kind of way.

Let this mixture dry completely as acrylics of this variety can lighten or darken while drying. When dry you can add thin acrylic washes of brown (for the not-so healthy spots and roots. Then once the wash dries, you can drybrush the moss a little using a color that’s only slightly lighter than the dried moss mix to bring out the texture and tease out the flocking fluff. Here’s the final results.

This is the basics of my method, but I’ll be playing with different colors and different add-ins later for different projects.

A while back when I had finished up my 1/35 Scale Hovertruck Diorama titled Gone Fishing, I posted it at a number of forums. The editor of the fantastic Czech language military modeling magazine Modelář loved it and asked me to write an article on the build-up. I don’t write or speak Czech, but that was no problem. I wrote the article in English and they did the translations. I might have overdid it with the article being 11 pages in Word, and I’m sure they had a “fun” time translating all of that, but it was a huge project and they wanted every detail described. It appeared in the current “Extra” issue of the magazine and is available now.

I don’t have the issue yet, but they sent me pics of the article to post provided I shrink them enough to be illegible. Modelář is a well known mag in the military modeling world and is full of fantastic build-ups. There’s not any sci-fi in it so the editor wanted to print my work to show how the same techniques one would use on armor and aircraft can be used to do something different. Here’s the shots of the article:

A while back I started seeing links and images of modular display bases for mecha (and other sci-fi) subjects. These M.O.D. (Modify Own Device) bases from Ashita are modular and you can stack and configure as many sets as you’d like to get the size you need. A pretty cool idea and something I wish I had a few years back.

Well, a few weeks ago I got an email from them asking me for comments and suggestions for their products. Since I’ve only seen images on their site, all I could offer up was a few suggestions. They decided to send me their pre-painted SS01 Base, the unpainted SS02, and their EX01 Cargo Set to review and also to get some feedback on. They’re a small company so I really appreciate the samples and what they add to the community with their new products. It’s not easy being the little guy, but do great work and people will come.

SS01 Base For Multi-Purpose

The first-up is the pre-painted SS01 base. This comes in a nice box with one floor, two identical rear walls, two railing/walkways, one control booth, one vent (to fit the other rear walls control booth hole) and a sprue with two connectors (to connect this base with another) and some unpainted pipe-mounts (pipe/tube not included, but styrene/metal tube can be used). The larger parts are all packed in individual bags to prevent scratching while the smaller parts come in one bag, but had no scratches whatsoever.
The parts are all crisply molded with nice wide panel lines. This would be bad on a kit, but works well on the base since they show up better against the wide flat surfaces. The floor has some panel lines and a vent while the walls have panel lines, doors, and a few raised rectangular details. The railings are molded in one piece and pretty crisp. The control booth is one piece and fits very snuggly into the slots on the walls. For the leftover slot there’s a nice vent part that perfectly fits there.

As for painting, the parts are painted in a nice neutral gray with slightly darker shading along the panel lines. These gray parts have a nice matte sheen as well. The windows are painted nicely with a sky-blue-to-white gradient. Other parts have black/yellow caution stripes. If I had one minor nit-pick with the painting it would be these stripes. They’re a great effect but they could be painted more crisply. The painting isn’t anything worse than I’ve seen in some high-end toys so really, for most this wouldn’t be an issue. Since I’m a modeler then I like to see crisper lines. I don’t think they’re hand-painted, but some stripes are slightly wider than others. They’re the exact same on all the parts so I’m assuming it’s an issue with the paint stamping tool during the manufacturing process and not all that noticeable unless you’re being very anal retentive.

Stripes aside, the base is very nice and I’ll use this pre-painted version, as-is, for something for sure. It stands about 11.25 inches high including the floor and is about 6.75 inches wide. Large enough for most Gundams, MG and HGUC. Now some larger MGs would need an additional floor to fit such as the S-Gundam and Rick Dias.

SS02 Base For Multi-Purpose

Next up is the unpainted SS02 which features a large hanger door. It’s the same size as the SS01 and in interchangable with all of its parts for an unlimited array of configurations. What I like about this set is the single 4.5 inch tall bay door. This base would not only be useful for Gundam kits, but is the perfect size for the 1/20 MaK suits such as the Heinrich and SAFS and would be great for bases for those.

This set contains the same floor as the SS01, one large bay door, two rear walls (one with a slot for the door), two railing/walkways (one straight and one with an observation-style outcropping) 6 pipes, pipe elbows, and pipe-mounts, and 4 additional add-ons (vent, and panel boxes) which can be glued anywhere you like for added details.

The set features the same crisp molding and panel lines as the SS01 with no flash. (other than the standard mold lines, but even MGs have that!) The pipes are a nice addition and would had been great if included with the SS01 as well. The door is one piece, but with some cutting can be opened. if that’s what you want.

My only complaint here would be the door is only as tall as one of the 2 rear wall sections. Unfortunately not large enough for an HGUC or MG head height. Perhaps a later release could have a taller door to accommodate these kits. Perhaps that’s not the mecha door… i.e. use your imagination. Large cargo, tanks, etc… Either way it makes a nice backdrop.

EX01 1/100 Cargo Set

Lastly is the 1/100 cargo set. This is a must for anyone doing a 1/100 (or even 1/60 and 1/72) mecha diorama. This set contains the following on two identical yellow sprues: two cargo transporters (14 parts each), four small containers, four large containers and 6 fuel drums.

The transporters are mostly snap-fit except for the roll-bars which have slots to fit into, but will need some glue. All of the boxes fit onto them nicely (the large ones would be a “wide load” however, but still look great on the carts.) and they could easily be converted to have mounts for transporting weapons. The crates are all two part slide-molded pieces (explaining the extra space between the large boxes) so that you have detail on all four sides. Each box has a lid which snap-fits. These are great for placing extra small weapons and such in for a diorama or can be sealed completely. The barrels are slide molded and are only one piece each. Thanks to the slide molding you have the outer ridges and the cap on the top with a solid bottom and no seams. There’s a mold line to remove on the sides, but that’s standard with any round model part.

Comparison with Mechanical Chain Bases

The base floor and walls are pretty flat and do not have a lot of raised detail on the rear wall such as the Kotobukiya Chain bases, but what’s nice about that is the freedom it gives you to add whatever you need/want to make it “yours”. In other words, they’re great on their own, or with as much or as little detail as you want to add. I have one of the Koto bases as well, and while both are nice, the Ashita M.O.D. bases give your more vertical display bases. They’re also wider, but do not have as much floor depth.

Conclusion

Overall the M.O.D. bases are great sets for those looking to create a fast diorama. While the rear wall is not as detailed as the Koto bases, you get more vertical space since each set contains 2 stackable rear walls (unlike Kotos’s one rear wall) and have a nice “base” for adding details to. The plastic is nice and heavy so there’s no worries about toppling or sagging. The parts that come with them for attaching multiple packs of the bases together are great and strong as well. You can use these for PGs, MGs, HGUCs, Evas, Armored Cores and more! I’d recommend them.

What I’d like to see them do in future products (since they asked for suggestions) is some more hangar equipment sets such as wheeled missile/gun racks, cherry-pickers (people lifters), and boxes large enough to hold a 1/100 beam rifle, Maybe another MOD base with cranes, wheeled and/or mounted inside the base like I did for my Zaku Diorama. A double height door would be nice too for those looking to display a kit walking in or out. Oh and a side wall and/or roof would be great too for making a corner dio or mecha cubby-hole. A lighted roof… well, that’d just be awesome. Not sure if they’d consider doing figures as well. Having ground crew in 1/100 would be a great addition as figures can add so much to a scene.

Thanks to Mr. Wu at Ashita for the samples for this review! You can view more info about all of their products on their site at www.hkashita.com.

You can purchase mod bases from MechaSkunk.com

So boys and girls, aside from the FichtenFoo.com redesign, I had another project this summer. Since May 2007 I’ve been contracted to do freelance web work on the design of the North America Bandai Action Kit Universal Cup (BAKUC) Online website!

This website was programmed from the ground-up to not only be a contest website, but a model gallery and community as well. While the forum is still under construction, the rest of the site is ready to go! Any modeler can go and upload their photos to the gallery, get feedback and votes, then enter them into various contest such as the big one: The BAKUC 2007 Semi-Finals for North America! Win that and you win a trip to Hong Kong to compete in the BAKUC finals! There will also be a monthly contest and random draw competitions. All of which have great prizes for winning!

Anyway, this was a great project to work on and I’m proud to be a part of it. It has a lot of potential and will hopefully show Bandai that NA still loves gunpla! Don’t give up on us Bandai! (Oh, and make an MG Gerbera Tetra already Bandai! What are you waiting for?)

It wasn’t an easy process, but after a few redesigns we got a great looking site full of functionality and potential. The Masked BAKUC was fun to draw in the chibi style. There’s probably a few bugs and other issues that’ll come up as they do with any new site, but the programmer is fantastic and will have everything running smoothly!

Thanks to Sean for bringing me on with this project and congrats on a programming job well done! I also want to thank Zerobxu for helping me tremendously with the content writing, proofreading, spell checking, and everything else with this. You have a gift for the written word. I have a few thank-you surprises to send you for all the help. Just need your new addy. Thanks to to the beta-testers as well. Great job guys!

So go register and enter your works into the gallery and the contests. It’s free! Also the first 100 entrants can get a free Action Base with the purchase of any model from HobbyWave!

This site is for everyone regardless of skill level. There will be contests for Juniors ans Open categories with each category split into beginner, intermediate, advanced, and expert skill classes.Tell your friends and spread the word! The more people that enter the site, the more fun it’ll be. You can help spread the word with this banner.

Thanks for looking and I hope you guys enjoy the site. It’s been hard keeping it a secret, especially with some of the flak I’ve gotten recently, but now it’s done and we can all enjoy the hobby together.