Basics - Ground Cover

With your sheds now on your baseboard you'll want a way to hide the rest of that bare wood. There are various options out there and to start with we look at one of the cleanest methods
Mats
Mats come as rolled sheets with a scenic scatter applied to one side that can be cut to shape and glued directly to your baseboard.
Brushwood Toys offer a range of mats suitable for model farms from gravel textured ones through to grass and and harvest.

 More expensive and realistic mats are also available from model railway manufactures which I will discuss in a latter post. A variety of such more detailed mats can be found at Holly Loves Toys

Artificial Grass
It is common for shops such as Lidl and Aldi to have offers in the summer on rolls of artificial grass. This can be a relatively in expensive way of covering your baseboard however it is far from realistic and is better suited to displaying tractor collections on than use in a realistic diorama. I have seen it used well as a field of crops being fertilized rather than grass on a 1/32 model farm.

Scenic Scatter

Hailing from the model railway fraternity scenic scatter can offer great results. It is basically a loose version of the material applied to grass mats meaning it can be applied in more complex shapes. Simply paint the area you want to cover brown, once dry spread a layer of PVA glue over the area and sprinkle the scatter on. When set either vacuum up the excess scatter or tilt the baseboard on its side tapping it to let the loose scatter fall off. Tap onto some newspaper to collect up and re use the loose scatter. A spray of 50:50 PVA water mix with a drop of washing up liquid over the scatter using a Mr Muscle style squeezey bottle will seal the scatter and stop it falling off over time. Darker gravel, tarmac and earth coloured scatters are also available with a variety of scatter size depending on the surface you are trying to imitate.

Javis are one of a number of companies that produce such scatters

Static Grass

Moving towards the realistic covering methods is Static Grass. This is fine strands of coloured fibre that when applied between an electric charge stand on end like real grass. A more detailed discussion on this will feature latter in the blog but for now it should be noted that although realistic it is also one of the dearer options. Longer length grass such as those advertised for use with warhammer modelling are more appropriate for the larger 1:32 scale models than shorter strands more suited to the smaller model railway scales.

Paints

Many different forms of paint can be used to cover areas of ground. If on a very tight budget green and brown paint can be used for fields.

An effective use of greys and blacks can create very realistic looking tarmac roads and concrete yards. Any matt paint is suitable for this including poster paints.

Companies such as Plasti-kote offer a textured stone effect spray paint that can be directly applied to a baseboard to emulate a gravel yard quickly and effectively.

Dried Coffee

A great way to create realistic looking cultivated or ploughed fields is by sprinkling a layer of dry coffee over the board. This can be worked using models or fixed in place with the PVA method discussed in the Scenic Scatter section.

Sand

Sand can be a cheap alternative to scatter, simply paint once glued down