Basing: Painting Sand

[Techmarine Harkus]

I've been at this hobby now for some 10 years, and Ive never had to paint sand. And I dont have a clue. Im not entirely sure if this is the right place to post this, but hey.

 

What techniques do you guys use to paint sand? Comments on washes/drybrushing/mixing (paint and water ratios) would be most useful.

 

Cheers

[Hydra]

water down a brown paint, slab that on with a big brush, then drybrush with lighter shades

[Bjornas]

I usually start with a thinned down Black Ink wash and then drybrush Bubonic Brown, before finishing off with a drybrush of Bleached Bone. Looks ace with GW static grass <_<

[Techmarine Harkus]

cheers so far. Only one question, do you use any paint before you do your first wash? cause at the moment the unpainted GW sand isn't looking a particularly approachable color for me to work with...

[Dezzo]

i always glue the sand on the base when i prime the mini. so it's black

 

i wash the base with a shade of brown before drybrushing with a lighter shade of brown like khaki or desert yellow.

[Onisuzume]

I've recently painted some sand by beginning with a scorched brown wash, followed by a bestial brown highlight and a subsequent graveyard earth highlight.

[Techmarine Harkus]

I spent ages looking for that Terrain painting page... I dont think we have it on the UK GW site, which is where I was looking.

 

My final sand painting attempt went down in a rather labourious way...

 

Painted Scorched Brown, Added graveyard earth and Bad Moon Yellow (not quite the shade Id have liked, but its all I have) and drybrushed. More graveyard and a little more yellow for the next few drybrushings, and then one more with some bleached bone added the the mix for the final highlight. Dosent look too bad. If you want to see how it turns out, keep your eyes peeled for a "Marine v Necron duel" post in the finished work section popping up in the next week or so when I get round to taking and hosting some photos of it.

 

Thanks for your additions to the final result.

[The Raven]

I found this pretty usefull for drybrushed bases, look about a 1/4 of the way down the page

 

http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=29528

[Gillyfish]

For bases I use black ink over the glued sand, then brown ink.

 

Once dried, I drybrush using Bestial Brown, followed by Vomit Brown and finally Bleached Bone.

 

Then simply glue on static grass.

 

The result looks like the bases in these photos:

 

http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o126/Gi...10/101_0524.jpg

http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o126/Gi...10/101_0523.jpg

[Techmarine Harkus]

mm, very nice. That warseer thread was just the right sort of thing im looking for. Ill post up some pics in the finished work section soon like I said, if you want a look, im just going to take pictures. As you can see, its not the same sort of look that im going for, I was hoping to try and make it look like it actually is sand, and I don't think I did too badly.

 

Cheers guys

[Yellow Eye]

I usually just add a quick drybrush, then a wash, then another drybrush. If you want you can add a bit of deatail to it too.

[Techmarine Harkus]

Wow... Epic necropost. I was rather confused when I got an update notification from something I dont even remember posting. (2 years ago).

[Yellow Eye]

This is my new desert sand technique that I used yesterday with great results:

 

Just get a brush, glue, sand, and Vermin Brown and Vomit Brown.

 

Glue the sand to the base firstly. Let it dry. Then paint with the Vermin brown. Let that dry. Finally, highlight with the vomit brown and voila. Desert sand. Also try adding rocks and clusters of grass.

 

An example of the finished pic:

http://img199.imageshack.us/img199/8642/picsfromcamera29thaprili.jpg

[Dmetor]

For a lighter sand look try vomit brown with a drybrush of bleached bone, then a very light drybrush of skull white

[NemFX]

Go to your local dollar store.

 

Find 'country maple' and 'burnt umber'

 

CM works great for light beach sand, BU works for mud. Mix the two and you have sand.

[Skirax]

Apply Chaos Black, wait for it to dry, then choose our paint for the environment (I did a CB undercoat, then a Skull White Overcoat [Tundra Environment]) then, if you want to add more depth, a Badab Black wash.

[darrkespur]

My current army is using a desert base which is Calthan Brown with a darker wash, then built up highlights with vomit brown and then desert yellow. Seems ok so far. The lightness of desert yellow is a nice balance for my fairly dark grey marines.

[aneato]

scorched brown with bleached bone drybrush.

[WolfScout86]

I have glued (Using PVA) GW sand on to my bases but when coming to painting it just seems to come off any advice?

 

Models I am basing since deciding to use sand I am doing so before I prime so this isnt an issue but I have some 8 or so models I have already painted and its becoming a pain as I don't want to ruin my work.

 

Wolfscout

[Zode]

In case you still need an answer:

 

PVA glue is of course water souble, so if you try and put a really wet coat of paint down over it it can cause your glue to run and your sand to move. Your best bet is to get a whole lot of really watered down paint on your brush so you can coat it quickly while pressing as lightly on the sand as possible and trying to make sure you don't have to go back over parts you already painted. This is because after a few seconds the watery paint will losen the glue but if you don't touch it, it will dry again with the paint and you'll never know the difference. The alternative is to not water down your paint at all and spread it on thick. 100% paint won't melt the glue as much as a watered solution but you'll have to use a lot more to get it to fill in all the crevases.

[frostreaver]

I'd actually recommend starting with either grout primed black or wet patch (basically the same stuff). If you use wet patch you have to use your fingers to pack it in and make it look like sand. Once primed and dried its not water soluble, therefore you can mix some Dheneb Stone with water and matte medium to base coat it and follow it up with a a dry brush of skull white. Lately I have been using simpleFix adhesive and grout, you can get it premixed in a 1 quart alabaster color at home depot for 8 bucks in the tile section. Make sure you don't get any on the sides and you repaint the sides black :D I actually prefer the sunk in bases like Privater press has but to each their own. Base and then glue the model on there, if you do it the opposite you'll get stuff on the feet unless you want dirt on the feet!

 

Anthony

[Highborn Mergula]

How i paint sand 4 steps. Quick and easy ^_^

Step1.Scorched brown.

Step2.Drybrush of desert yellow also i paint the rim desert yellow.

Step3.Drybrush bleached bone ( not the rim).

Step4.Wash everything devlan mud (even the rim).

 

Thats 4 Easy steps in how i paint bases it's kinda like a desert terrain and looks great.

/HB M

[KJB]

I do mine by painting the base Scorched brown followed by drybrushing the following colours - snakebite leather, vermin brown, desert yellow, bleached bone and then finally a light drybrush of skull white.