Miniature ivy creeper vines, one leaf at a time

Twigs, glue and birch seeds

This week I blended in the shield tip and feet of my 54mm Prince of Novograd figure to the base snow .  This took a few days as each day was glue on one layer of snow effect, wait for it to dry, then the next day do the next layer.  As the figure is all but done my wife mentioned that he needed some extra colour/bling.  She suggested some green growth on the rear tree.

Growing slowly

I first thought of using lichen but that never looks as good as you want it.  I just can’t seem to get it looking any better than just a lump of badly glued and painted lichen.  Should do some research on that.

My next idea was some laser cut or brass etched vine leaves.  I went to Hobbyco and got the “HO scale laser cut Mini Virginia Creeper” made by Noch.  Absolutely amazing detail on the paper laser cut vines.  However they are a bit small for 54mm.  No waste there as they are just right for 28mm figures.  Guess those wood elves are going to get some serious basing bling.

I had heard of people making their own vines by hand, but didn’t really know a good way to do this.  I recently got a copy of “The rise of fantasy” by Juan J Barrena (recommended reading) where he describes the process using twigs, super glue and birch seeds as leaves to make vines.  Since I already had the birch seeds and the garden has lots of twigs I gave it a try.

Action shot

One sick tree

Surprisingly it worked really well.  I was expecting a mess of glue and tears like my first attempts at making water reeds.  Instead I got some ok looking vines.  One of the key techniques is to let the super glue start to get tacky as that aids in holding the leaf.  Otherwise you are trying not to shake as you wait of the glue to dry, and usually failing.  Even with the very small attachment point the whole thing is very solid.  I’m sold and expect to be having vines and custom trees appearing a lot more in my bases to come.  I do however need to purchase a decent pair of tweezers as the $2 shop ones I have aren’t much chop.

Snow effect for miniature figures

For my current 54mm knight figure I’ve been thinking of putting him on a snow base.  I have never tried doing any kind of snow effects before and had only heard about some of the older techniques (e.g. baking soda on PVA glue which apparently goes yellow).

Always buy stuff on special, regardless

Luckily for me I already had a snow and ice starter kit.  This was a $5 special from Hobbyco.  It was a “SceneArama” brand kit which is what Woodland Scenics sell their school kits under.

It came with

* snow paste - aka Flex Paste with is a little like gesso and PVA glue.  When put in mounds they retain their shape
* Snow Flakes - basically white scatter material
* Ice effects - Woodland Scenics realistic water.  You make lines of it on release paper (wax paper) to make icicles.

Snow paste and flakes on the top, paste + water on the bottom

The standard way to make snow drifts is to mix the paste and flakes together and apply as snow drifts.  You can also mix the paste with water and then sprinkle the flakes over that.  In both cases you just get a really lumpy white mound which doesn’t look much like snow.  Sad face on that one.

Woodland Scenics snow flakes by themselves

Noch snowflakes - aka white static grass with glitter

The second group of products I tried was the Noch brand, with the Starter Set Snowflakes.  This set has

* Snow glue - looks like PVA and white paint.  Much thinner than the Woodland Scenics Flex Paste and self levels
* Snowflakes - white static grass with glitter mixed in
* a static grass shaker.  The idea is you shake the static grass inside to build up a static charge and then sprinkle out the grass.

Shaker bottle

Firstly the snow glue is much whiter than the Woodland Scenics flex paste and looks better as thick snow cover.  The snowflakes material is ok, but kind of makes everything fuzzy rather than snowy.  The glitter (to add light sparkle) I think is fine in the train world where the scale is much smaller but on figures it just doesn’t look right.  Especially as glitter is either green or purple in colour normally so you are wondering why your snow cover has purple spots in it.  I did find that the best effect was to start with the snow glue, add the Woodland Scenics snowflakes scatter, then when that was dry add another layer of snow glue and add the Noch snowflakes static grass.  These multiples layers helped with the realism.  However the glitter was still an issue.

Below are some example of the end results of the above

All the experiments together

Woodland Scenics flex paste and snowflakes

Noah Snow glue and snow flake static grass.  Note the glitter

Noah snow glue, Woodland Scenics snowflakes, Noch white static grass

Normally I always go for railroad modelling supplies for terrain making.  Pretty much all the gaming terrain supplies are just rebadged railroad brands with inflated prices and reduced quantities.  However I tried two gaming ones and I’m pretty happy with both which surprised me.

AP snow with PVA glue

The first was the Army Paint Battlefields Snow.  This has some weight to it so I’m wondering if it is some kind of painted fine sand.  You put down some PVA glue and add the snow grains to it.  It looks pretty good at just that.  The size of the particles are smaller than the Woodland Scenics snowflakes particles.  With a bit of static grass over the top it looks even better.  It also comes in a handy square container with a clip on lid.

The second was from 4Ground.  This was their Snow static grass.  Basically just the same as the Noch white static grass but with no glitter.  Why wasn’t this at my LGS the first time I went looking!  I’m thinking the Noch static grass isn’t going to see much love.

So my current snow design is the Noch snow glue with AP snow and Woodland scenics snowflakes, finally covered in 4Ground white static grass.  If you don’t want to have a cupboard full of snow products and just want to snow up some 28mm bases I would recommend PVA glue, white paint and the AP snow.

Noah white static grass sprayed down with a thin PVA/water spray.  Aka alien fungus

Finally on a “well that looks cool” note I found that if you sprinkle on the white static grass and then spray over it with a PVA/water mixture from a squirt bottle all the static grass lays down and moulds to the terrain surface.  When it dries it looks like some great Mirkwood spider webs.  Ie where the entire ground is covered with webs.  Or some kind of bad alien fungus.