Sand

[Mudkip Orange]

I know there's a lot of different options out there for scale water. And rocks. And retaining walls.

 

But what to use for sand?

 

Looking around the 'net, I've found a bunch of actual sand that people sell for use as gravel - but nothing used to model sand. I'm especially looking for something representative of the darker, brownish sand common to Japan and the Pacific Northwest. I've thought about just painting over smoothed plaster, but I think that'd come off too flat. Perhaps there's some sort of coarsening topcoat that I could put over the paint...

 

Thoughts?

[KenS]

I've never tried to model sand, but in N-scale I don't think you want a rough surface (other than perhaps the kind of ripples you see on sand that's usually under water, but exposed at low tide). But what you do need is a surface that is uneven on a large scale, since sand is never perfectly smooth, but is carved into small rises and depressions by water and wind.  I'd be inclined to used a fine plaster (casting plaster of some kind). You could use a broad fine brush to give it ripples parallel to the water's edge, or drag a damp paper towel across it before it starts to set to make the surface a little uneven and then let it slump back to mostly smooth before it sets.

 

Color could be a small amount of water-soluble paint added when you mix it.

[keiman]

Last time I did something with sand, I got a jar of it from the grandchildrens sand pit(very fine play sand) and dried it in the oven. Did not try colouring it as the colour was OK for what I wanted.

[Bernard]

Mud - I've used fine trellis from WS to create my shorelines but if it's a sandy beach scene you're looking to make what about "sand art" from a craft store like AC Moore or Michaels. Would this work:

http://www.acmoore.com/p-87673-extreme-sand-art-bottle-8-ounces-sandcastle.aspx

 

I just remembered, my wife used "art sand" in bowls from AC Moore to make decorative candle displays for our guest bathroom.....well at lest our cats liked them

[Lawrence]

Time to share one of my little modelling secrets I guess.  If you have ever come across a chinchilla, they do love a dust bath (cleans the dead skin & ticks etc apparently) well I got some chinchilla sand from a friend of mine and I have to say it works great for exactly this kind of thing, there may be some slightly larger bits in there which can be sieved out with something like a tea strainer.  It can be picked up at your local pet supply shop and costs pennies in comparison to proper art or modelling stuff.

 

Here is a shot from my old B&O layout, the light areas around the station are chinchilla sand

 

Here is a closer shot

 

Not great lighting I'm afraid

[cteno4]

The finest sand i have found is for candle making and sand painting. they have some pretty fine stuff thats very uniform. its finer than the smallest rr ballast i have seen. you can get it for like $2 for a bag at the craft shop. comes in like 5 or 6 colors (pretty strong colors unfortunately).

 

you can easily color the sand by mixing up some acrylic paint to the color you want for your sand (i use the 25 cent bottles from the craft store) and i thin it down some so its not super thick. then i sprinkle the sand thats the closest match for the paint color onto it and tamp it down gently with a dry brush. after its dried i just sweep off the extra non sticking stuff. the stuff left behind pretty much picks up all the paint color. you can spray some diluted paint onto the sand then if needed. havnt tried doing some air brushing or dry brushing, but i expect some interesting things could be done.

 

this is the perfect stuff to give a texture close to gravel around temples so you dont end up with scale gravel the size of basketballs! i started fiddling with this to make a better gravel areas on the tomytec temple scenes. the paint technique gives you a very uniform coloration which is fine for someplace like a temple where they want it that way, but does not work so well in more natural situations where you are going to have a variety of crap mixed in with your sand.

 

i have been meaning to grab a bag of beach sand at some beaches i have been at with very fine sands, but never got around to it. that stuff would need to be washed, sieved and baked though, but would give some nice blended natural colors!. i grab little bags of sand, shells, sticks, and bones from beaches i have visited around the world as a souvenir that i have in a big rack of test tubes in my office for fun.

 

also there are some ultra fine sand blasting grits out there, but usually you have to buy like a 10lb bag of that stuff!

 

cheers

 

jeff

[CaptOblivious]

I was just at a play area with my little girl where they had a big table of "Moon Sand" set up to play in: It would be absolutely perfect for small-scale sand. The texture is extraordinarily fine, and it's slightly moist to make it moldable and sculptable: I experimented with creating "beaches" with slight ripples and dunes, just with my bare hands, and the results were rather impressive. I imagine you could simply spray it down with diluted white glue or the like to make it permanent, but I would experiment first.

 

A quick look around the web reveals that the name brand stuff can be pricy (it's a kids' toy, after all), but no-name stuff can surely be had cheap at Hobby Lobby or its ilk.

[Martijn Meerts]

I was just at a play area with my little girl where they had a big table of "Moon Sand" set up to play in: It would be absolutely perfect for small-scale sand. The texture is extraordinarily fine, and it's slightly moist to make it moldable and sculptable: I experimented with creating "beaches" with slight ripples and dunes, just with my bare hands, and the results were rather impressive.

 

So, you chased away all the kids so you could play with the sand? =)

[Lawrence]

I wouldn't use beach sand by the way due to the salt content, any moisture and things will rust 

[cteno4]

good to go to the playground! bet dad was having as much fun as his daughter! LOL! next week you will have your tomytec beach house and figures out there along with a few fishing boats and a wharf and really be playing!

 

interesting stuff never seen it. that just got me thinking that there was that toy of very fine sand in water in drip bottles that you would drip to form sand castles and such. it was a really fine sand. silly sand was one of them. dont think its around anymore.

 

there is a new stuff that is called aqua sand that is a hydrophobic sand that will stick together underwater, but not sure what it does on its own or how fine it is.

 

beach sand would be fine all you would need to do is rinse it a few times and drain with fresh water to remove any salt then would need to sieve it to get out odd stuff. then finally bake it in the oven like 150 for 30 min to kill any bacteria and such.

 

going to have to look at the chinchilla dust next time im at the pet store, looks to be $7 for a kilo of the stuff. (sounds like a drug deal -- hey man i can break up a key of chinchilla dust to move with some railway freaks to make some green... maybe with some white glue sniffers too man... too much cheech n chong)

 

cheers

 

jeff

[Bernard]

Jeff or Curt - Did you any material in the layout in the Harbor to simulate a sandy beach?

[cteno4]

Bernard,

 

the harbor scene is all concrete wall construction (ie shipping channel). there is a beach over on the far end shore. i didnt look all that closely at the sand used or its size (i was a bit stunned when visiting curt's layout, its going to take a few visits where i am not a drooling idiot standing there with my mouth open). it was a nice beach effect scene.

 

where i find sand looses it is when figures are put on top of it and the grains of sand look like baseballs or lager in size then! its a very hard effect i think as at a distance ultra fine sand may not give the appearance of sand, but up close it does and vise versa. some things just wont give you your cake and eat it too when you scale things down!

 

http://japanrailmodelers.org/photos/kurtslayout/fullsize/Untitled-2.jpg

 

cheers

 

jeff

[scott]

According to chinchillas.com (!!!), chinchilla dust "is a fine powder that mimics the volcanic ash of their native environment."

 

Sooo...how about talcum powder, then? (The real stuff, not corn starch.) It should be pretty fine. Never tried gluing it down before, though.

[cteno4]

from the pictures i have seen of the chinchilla dust it looks more like a fine sand than a dust. want to check it out next visit to the pet store.

 

problem here is that if you get it close to scale you will only really see it as "sand" up close. at any distance it may loose all the texture. while in real life at any distance you loose seeing the grains, in a scale model you sometimes have to give a hit of the texture (even if its overscale) to the eye so it then has the mind fill in the real life beach memory. at smaller scales its really all about perceived scenery as its hard to get the details done close enough and its more about tricking the mind into filling in real life memories for the various elements if you can just hit the right buttons to push in the brain.

 

its also tough as your most of your usual viewing distances of layout scenes is quite a scale distance (ie like 3' would be 150 yards away in full scale.) My opnion is its most important that the scene's visual impact work there first to get the mind tricked into filling in with imagination as much as possible. then secondarily move in with the up close detail to make the scene come alive as you focus in (some of these will also add to the pull back view as well, just as more abstract elements w/o details at distance). i am willing to give up on making the up close detail perfect if it means a better pull back effect, but always look for a happy medium if possible. sand is one im not sure if there is one or not.

 

i just got curious about the sand as the new beach stuff is coming out from tomytec and curious to how to 'sand' it!

 

cheers

 

jeff

[Guest Closed Account 1]

What about using reptile sand? It's real desert sand or sift out some from a wash (if you live in the desert).

 

I'd like to know what color paint to use to simulate Caliche on the bare wood before any sand or scenery is used. Thanks!

[cumber_s]

Sand ia always hard o modell especially in smaler scales...

The Layout of ma father (1:87) uses sand from the Baltic Sea ( specifically from the Gdansk area)

-> The sand is extremely fine , nearly flour like.

perfect in HO , but with N I think it is not fine enough.

 

In 1:35 I use stoneware glue as a sand / Gravel sustitute. perfect in color and I have still half a bag left.

 

 

In my current layout I think about using colored flour to model sand , but that  is still not final...

[inobu]

What cumber_s saying is true. The key is to think and see to scale. Seeing the world in N-Scale is looking from a distance of 300 feet or so. Sand looks like power from that distance with little to no reflective properties.

 

The problem you will run into using fine power is compression or compacting which you want to avoid. I think your best bet is to create the over all terrain shape, paint a base coat and then lightly dust it until the texture is developed.

 

The process is similar to the way of making sand paper. Super fine sandpaper has the look you want.

 

 

 

Inobu

[cteno4]

yes this is what painting the surface the desired color and then sprinkling the fine art sand on top did for me, gave texture w/o having baseball sized sand grains at scale. only issue is that things come out a single color, but then coming back with some scenery powders, dry brushing, or other weathering techniques could then pop in some details.

 

it is a balance at scale though and also the finer the material the odder it behaves when you try to stick it down with various techniques.

 

i fear flower may start to dissolved oddly into any liquid glues and give you a semi dissolved appearance. could try things like rubber cement or spray adhesive then sprinkle it on top. but then may need a top coat of something like dull coat to preserve it well.

 

cheers,

 

jeff

[Guest Closed Account 1]

Will a paint roller with a thick knap give a realistic look?

[cteno4]

webskipper,

 

kind of doubt that would give good scale texture. biggest issue would be that usually sand features like this are in tight small and usually non-flat so would be hard to roll. maybe a tiny little mini roller!

 

i did just find my extra fine candle sand last night. im going to fiddle with it some more to see what effects it can get with paint. i did a couple of little tests a while back, but lost the board, so time to try again.

 

i was also wondering if there might be some silica based powders that might give a tad of texture to paint thinned out.

 

we were looking at curts layout's beach and it was just paint and it looked quite good at a couple of feet as at that scale distance you would not see any texture anyway, just the color.

 

cheers

 

jeff

[NozomiFan]

As a AFV modeler, I seen the need for a sandy environment. Anybody heard of Tamiya? They make some excellent plastic kits with some great RC cars. So, there's this stuff-

 

"【 Recreating Sandy Surfaces 】　 This water-based grit effect paint is useful for recreating sandy surfaces. The inspiration for this paint's color is the deserts of Iraq and Afghanistan. The grit effect paint has colored ceramic particles for recreating sandy surfaces. Contains enough paint to cover B4-sized area (2 coats). Drying time: 4-5 hours. 1 bottle contains 100ml."

There's also a Snow, Asphalt, Snow Drift (Fresh Powder), Dirt, Grass, Cement, and khaki dead grass-

Search the bottom of the page to show the different effects- http://www.tamiya.com/english/products/list/maintenance/kit87002.htm

If the stuff is too light, simply give it a light once over with a spraycan of a darker color.

[Mudkip Orange]

As a AFV modeler, I seen the need for a sandy environment. Anybody heard of Tamiya? They make some excellent plastic kits with some great RC cars. So, there's this stuff-

 

"【 Recreating Sandy Surfaces 】　 This water-based grit effect paint is useful for recreating sandy surfaces. The inspiration for this paint's color is the deserts of Iraq and Afghanistan. The grit effect paint has colored ceramic particles for recreating sandy surfaces. Contains enough paint to cover B4-sized area (2 coats). Drying time: 4-5 hours. 1 bottle contains 100ml."

There's also a Snow, Asphalt, Snow Drift (Fresh Powder), Dirt, Grass, Cement, and khaki dead grass-

Search the bottom of the page to show the different effects- http://www.tamiya.com/english/products/list/maintenance/kit87002.htm

If the stuff is too light, simply give it a light once over with a spraycan of a darker color.

 

 

 

This is EXACTLY what I was looking for, and in the color I was desiring to boot. Will definitely pick some up as I make progress on the module.

[quinntopia]

I highly recommend a line of very fine 'ballast' produced by "Highball Products".  Its actually made of limestone, after mixing with white glue/water mixture its a better sand material than ballast.

Below is photo where I used the Highball Products in between the Woodland Scenics fine ballast.  If your having trouble finding it, its because the Highball stuff is what looks like the 'grey sand' in between the tracks, which looks just like sand would (texture, color, etc..) in reality.  Sorry, not the best photo. 

 

I picked this up at one of my local hobby shops, but it looks like you can get it online as well:

http://www.modeltrainstuff.com/Highball-Products-s/1255.htm

[KenS]

I used the Highball HO ballast on my old HO layout, and it was great-looking stuff.  I also used a bag of the N-scale to make a gravel road, and I think you're right that it would have good texture for sand, maybe a bit coarse, but that's probably needed to fool the eye.  The gray I used (presumably dark gray since it was darker than the bag you're showing) would be way too dark for sand (unless you're modeling a really dark-sand beach), but I never tried the lighter colors to see how they looked.

[Kamiyacho]

As Jeff suggests, I think a lot depends on what you are trying to achieve.  When viewed from a few feet away the right color of paint on slight rough plaster looks fine. For me it is good enough even from reasonably close photography, especially next to buildings or larger items.  But in extreme close up just about any size of particle next to a figure is going to look like a fist-sized rock.