Diorama FX Landscape Texture Vulcan Black 0,1-0,6mm

Ash, soot and scorched ground

Black works differently on a diorama than any other shade. It does not add shape, it takes light away, and that is why it is used sparingly. The 0.1 to 0.6 mm grade gives a surface that swallows reflections, so the area beneath it optically recedes into the background. That is exactly what a charred beam needs, or a dead fire pit, the ash-covered surroundings of a field kitchen, or a strip of ground behind a burnt-out building.

Where black helps and where it hurts

• Fire pits and burnt sites: yes, there black tells the story on its own.
• Around track and fireboxes: yes, the fine grains imitate the fallout from the machines.
• Large areas of terrain: carefully, continuous black flattens the scene.
• Transitions to the surroundings: always soften them with a gray or brown scatter.

One rule helps in the work, namely that pure black hardly ever occurs in nature. Real ash tends to be grayish, cooled coal to go blue, fresh soot to be a dull brown-black. It therefore pays to go lightly over the material after fixing with a dry brush loaded with a cool gray and open its depth up that way, or the area will stay without legible structure.

Fixing matters most with a grain this fine. The right way is to drip thinned glue over the area with a dropper or a pipette, not with a brush, because the stroke of a brush pushes a fine surface about and leaves marks that are hard to even out afterward. Keep the container closed in the meantime, because the lightest fraction is stirred up by every draft and settles exactly where you do not want it.