Still adding grass as you can see. Been a little busy with a garage sale last weekend  (thank goodness THAT’s over!!!!) so this has been slow going. You can see that I’m adding clumps of the Jute grass and teasing it around while the glue is still wet so that it doesn’t look like hair plugs. When the entire base is filled with grass I’ll apply the same flower/weed mixes as I did to the back of the beastie.

At this point the beastie is just about finished. A few touch-ups here and there and he’s complete. I still however need to make the Druid “pilot” and finish the base grass. First things first though…

Moss! Before applying the moss I first mixed up some of Mig Productions new Fantasy Pigments to create a moss color for a base coloring. Mixing together 50/50 Zombie Green and Graveyard Dirt gave me the color I wanted. I applied this with an old brush and then airbrushed on a thin coat of the pigment fixer to seal it.

After this I applied the moss Per’s way as shown in my last update. Basically you’re mixing Fine Turf, White Glue and water then eye-dropping and drybrushing (when dry) paint to tint.

Once the moss was done I began applying the grass using Jute twine as seen in my tutorial here. The only difference between that tutorial and this is that all of my Jute was dyed a deep green with thinned cheap acrylic paint. I also applied roots as seen in the Dagobah Diorama to some of the creature. I want to add more to his right hand side as I forgot about that.

It took about 4-5 hours of unsteady work to apply all of the grass. Most of the grass clumps were about .5″ long give or take. Randomness is best here. Longer grass was used near the edges so that I could drape and curl it up nicer and shorter was used in the “chariot”.

When the grass was dry I teased it up, trimmed any long out of place strands and masked all the stone in aluminum foil. I thought for a while about how to get nice little scale flowers without using REAL flowers that would fade/become brittle over time. Woodland Scenics makes a flower mix which comes on a card with 4 individually packed colors. Red, White, Yellow, and Orange. The Red, Yellow and Orange are just very fine turf. I had hoped the white was too, but it was basically their flake snow. I was annoyed at first as I wanted purple, pink and white clover (as I see EVERYWHERE this time of year) and figured the turf could be easily dyed. As it turns out though, the flake snow makes AWESOME flowers and weeds.

Just pour some of the WS snow into a cup and add a few drops of thinned acrylic paint and mix. After it dries you have colored flower flakes. Fantastic! Store leftovers in some small zipper bags for future use.

First I sprinkled green and yellow-grass turf onto the grass as well as some of the green flower mix. This was all to make the grass look more like thick leafy weeds. I misted on some thinned matte medium to stick the weeds on and then sprinkled on my flower mixes to simulate  clover and wildflowers. Again, randomness is best.

Since the last update I’ve finished the painting for the golem and added his bronze accessories.  I also made and painted some more megalithic rocks for the base as well as constructing the base and basic groundwork. I’m really quite pleased with how my rocks have turned out. I’ve always had trouble painting rock to look like natural stone. Because of this I tend to use real stone when I can, but that really limits what one can do. Being able to make and paint realistic rocks may not sound like a big deal, but it adds a lot to a scene. Below I took a shot of the paint I used and my sponge bit I used for aplication.

The base is my typical plywood bottom encased in basswood then finished. Crumpled paper, wire mesh then a thin layer of Celluclay make up the groundwork. I painted it with a dirt color, (I need to darken it I think) but for the most part it will all be covered in grass.

Here’s my moss tests. Moss was done using Per Olav Lund’s method as shown on the Mig Productions forum. Basically it’s a mix of fine turf, white glue and paint. With my tests though I found my best bet was to not mix in the paint, but instead use an eyedropper to apply it later as I ended up smearing paint where I didn’t want it as seen on the rock between A and A2 below. Dropping a “dead” yellow-brown to the dry mix soaks down and looks like the brownish roots and die-off as seen in “A2″.

A: Light Green fine turf with a touch of “Earth” fine Turf.

A2: Dead-colored paint eyedropped on later.

B: A blend of Light Green, Soil and Earth fine turf. Dead-colored paint eyedropped on later.

C: Soil fine turf only

D: Earth fine turf sprinkled with real dead moss “dust”. Can be applied is parts of other mixes for die-off.

Why semi-final? Well, because if it was just an X-Wing model without being submergeged in swamp-water and muck then I’d be able to call it done. I still need to add the “seaweed” and such to the surface and will probably add some greenish muck-colored streaks using the  502 Abteilung oil paints.

Between this and the last update I applied the discoloration with 502 Abteilung oil paints and turpenoid. I used blue, rust, brown, and several shades of muck-green. Once cured completely I applied scorck and soot marks using “Rocket Exhaust” pigment from the Mig Productions Fantasy Pigments line. Then a final thin flat coat of FFA was applied to seal that in before later applying the wet effects.

Here’s some pics. Click on them for larger views.

The 1/20 Scale Falke from Hasegawa is completed. Overall a very fun build without any major problems. Parts fit was great and painting/weathering went smoothly. The base was fun as well. So nice to work with Celluclay at this scale rather than the large base for Dagobah. I used plaster rock molds from Woodland Scenics, gravel, dirt, and celluclay. I filled the bottom of the base with rocks and plaster for weight, but it wasn’t needed as the Falke is very light. To make the Falke look like it was flying very close to the ground on a ‘nap of the earth’ flight I made a tree trunk from wire and celluclay. Two wires stick up from the trunk to hold the Falke up. Then rotts were added to simulate the tree being broken by the Falke as it flies over it. This gives the illusion of flight. Jute was used for the grass.

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