December 02 2007 | The water lillies

Here are the water lillies, they are painted in Valejo green and "weathered" with some Citadel green and yellow inks.

December 02 2007 | The reeds

The Reeds were painted using the same method as the lower ground cover, each leaf painted individually.
The plumes were somewhat trimmed where the cottonwool was going a bit haywire and painted. A small whitey dry bruh was then applied on the top..

December 02 2007 | The bits of wood

What you can see here is a balsa plank for the access to the gun cradle and various roots.
By making my garden earlier this year I found out that strawberry roots looked somewhat like willows!
not sure about that, but then here we go.. Notice the white colour of the trunk. When all the bark is gone, trees in marshes tend to look like those.. Now Iw ill see if this colour jut fits with the global colour sheme.

December 02 2007 | Bits of stuff

Here is a bit of groundwork mess that I intend to put here and there on the Sokol's gun craddle: some crushed dry tarragon leaves tainted with citadel acrylics, tea and small bits of bark.

Now I am all set!

December 04 2007 | The earth mix

Since a bit of time some companies like Valejo sell some acrylic mixes that are supposed to help you do the groundwork in dioramas. they're right it really works;
But then i have been using those products since 1993 basically -you go to an artshop and ask for those mixes of acrylic binders and sand thin or thick... and it's cheaper.
So here what you have is a mix between a mostly completely dry acrylic rough sand mix with a "new" pot of thin sand one. the fact is that the thin sand is better for the final structure, but its low density makes it hard to really reproduce relief (the material sticks on the brush and is finally quite hard to apply). So mixing it with rougher stuff like here apperas to do the trick. So dried bits get mixed with the thin acrylic mix which produces a medium heavy gel -the dried bits are here to do som extra chunks in it, it's more uneven this way (not sure I explain well!)

So I mix up this with some acrylic paints.

December 04 2007 | Applying the earthy mix

I have been preparing some plastic bits of the right dimension -more or less glued them on a burnt out CD and applied the mix on it.

December 04 2007 | Adding the groundwork

Now came the time to add these plants I have been nursing n'painting for weeks!

So i put one of those, trim the unpainted end with a pair of cissors, embed it in the still wet earth mix and push the earth around the base (I would do this with real tomatoes!)

The trick is the *density*, you have density, you have realism

December 04 2007 | The other mix...

Here's the groundcover area that willm be behind Sokol's gun craddle. this one is different -few low groundwork, a few roots (that were painted before of course) and some already painted bits of moss and twigs