Mud & Sand

Dust and mud in the form of powder

Pigments are finely ground colored powders without a binder and on a model they behave quite differently from paint off a brush. They settle into grooves, around rivets and under wheel arches, where they create exactly the irregular layer that traffic in the field leaves behind. That is precisely why they come up as the last step of a build, after the varnish and after the washes.

Four shades that follow on from one another

In the package you will find a light ocher, a light sienna, a natural umber and a light slate gray. The first two tones match dry sand and stirred up soil, the umber lends a darker core to a deposit and the gray cools the whole where dust has settled on cold metal or on concrete. The four therefore form one continuous transition from the lightest deposit to the darkest, not four unrelated colors.

Application and fixing

Dry powder is spread with a flat brush or a cotton swab and secured with a drop of a fixing agent or alcohol thinner, which is allowed to wick under the deposit. As long as you do not use a fixative, everything can be wiped off and begun again, which is ideal for practice. You remove the surplus with a dry brush, whereas a harder brush creates the traces of running water. The powder also suits bases and terrain features, where it is mixed straight into modeling paste.

Where a deposit looks natural

A dusty surface never looks uniform. The most material holds where neither wind nor rain reaches: behind fenders, around hinges, on horizontal surfaces above the running gear and on the lower edge of a hull. Places where the crew moves or where water runs down, by contrast, stay cleaner. When you keep to this difference, a model looks dirtied by use and not evenly dusted over.