Desert sand paint?

[caboosebe]

I want to model some of my bases with desert sand.

Do I really need to buy a cup of desert sand or can I use regular white sand and paint it? If yes, what paint should I use?

 

Thank you for your time

 

 

Your friendly nutcase, Caboose

[Gurth]

You can certainly paint sand, no problems there. Just thin your paint so it flows well, use a relatively big brush, and keep in mind that the sand will soak up the paint quite well so you're going to need a fair amount (hence the thinning :o).

[caboosebe]

And what color do you suggest? surely sunburst yellow is too bright, no?

[silverneil]

Try desert yellow

[Firepower]

A common approach when primed black:

Bubonic Brown

Drybrushed Vermin brown

Drybrushed Bleach Bone

 

If you're basing after priming (which I don't recommend, seeing how primer helps add to the bond and resilience) You can probably get by just soaking it in Vermin and drybrushing Bleached Bone over it. Not 100% sure though.

[GhostLegion]

I used to go with something similar to what Firepower describes. Now, I prefer a Bestial Brown undercoat with a Desert Yellow overbrush. Final layer for this is a moderate to heavy drybrysh of Vallejo's Iraqi Sand (#70819). The result is pretty nice in my opinion.

[caboosebe]

Ok thanks all, I think i'll do a few test bases with all the diffrent suggestions and see what comes out best

[Gurth]

And what color do you suggest? surely sunburst yellow is too bright, no?

Any sand-coloured paint will do, depending on what you have in mind: dark or light, yellow or red sand, and so on. My own method would be to paint it in the sand colour I'd more or less like it to be, then apply a wash* of a darker shade and once that's dry, drybrush with a lighter colour.

 

* No, not the transparent paints GW sells under that name, but a proper wash: paint thinned so far it runs into all the cracks but does not cover the higher detail.

[Solid Zaku]

Hi Caboose. Here's some advice. I'm a desert dweller. I've lived in one all my life, and I figured using desert sand was the easiest thing to use ever. It's plentiful, is totally dry (in other words: took paint well) and was, of course, desert tan.

 

I was wrong. Way wrong. When I put it on the base, it looked just silly. There was no definition to the base, the color of the black base bled completely through, and it fell off like it wasn't even glued on.

 

Don't fret though, desert bases are doable, just don't use sand, for the love of the Emperor Enthroned. GW Basing Sand, used after the model is finished, works wonders. Just don't prime it, finish the model, color the base with Calthan Brown, and apply the glue and GWBS. It looks just like I wanted. There is the depth of the 'rocks' and differentiation in color.

[Obliterator]

I want to model some of my bases with desert sand.

Do I really need to buy a cup of desert sand or can I use regular white sand and paint it? If yes, what paint should I use?

What kind of desert are you looking for? On Terra alone you got tan deserts, reddish deserts, white ones, etc. On other planets you'll most likely encounter different colors as well (just google 'desert' and look at the variety of images you get). Depending on the look you're after, you'll probably need other colors.

For my bases I use modelling sand, like the GW product, or Woodland Scenics and the likes. When you use real sand, the grain is often too large to represent sand in a 28mm setting, you'll often end up with pebbles the size of a normal man's fist.

For my Salamanders I wanted to get a sort of white desert/wasteland scheme to get a nice contrast with the green. I basecoated the sand with Callthan Brown, and drybrushed with Graveyard Earth, Dheneb Stone, Bleached Bone and Skull White. I also applied some dry looking grasses. The edge was painted in pure Dheneb Stone.

[caboosebe]

It would be for my Thousand Sons, want to put them in an 'Egyptian' theme, so probably desert sand you see around the pyramids.

[True Thorn]

So a yellow/white sand tone?

[caboosebe]

yes something like that ^^